New LADA signing Hugo Valente is worried about the future of privateer drivers in the World Touring Car Championship, saying that both the costs are too high and the chances of being competitive too small.
Valente spent his first four years in the WTCC competing as an independent racer for Campos Racing, before impressing enough with his performances to land a works LADA seat for the 2016 season.
Despite a new name for the independents category in 2016 and doubled prize money, combined with the fact that both himself and Hungarian star Norbert Michelisz have graduated to works drivers, Valente admits he is worried about the prospects for future up-and-coming independents in the series.
“It’s kind of a tricky question to be honest,” said Valente when quizzed by TouringCars.Net about his opinion on the independents category. “I think it used to work with the previous rules, but nowadays it’s difficult.
“The new rules make it difficult, and I’m worried that we’re not going to have enough privateers in the future in order to keep going with the championship, because if there are only 12 or 14 manufacturer cars it’s not enough to make a world championship.
“I think I was lucky because sometimes you’ve just got to be in the right place at the right moment, and I think for the first time in my entire career I was in the right place at the right moment.
“Honestly I think I was lucky, because Norbi has been performing extremely well for the past four or five years. This year I think he was second of the Hondas, the year before he was first, the year before that I think he was first or second as well, so he’s always been the best of the rest – and yet it took him seven or eight years to become an official driver, from being a privateer, and always being one of the best independent drivers.”
Valente is aware that he only got the nod with LADA after a shake-up in the driver market which was triggered when Gabriele Tarquini’s contract with Honda was not renewed for 2016. That paved the way for Rob Huff to leave LADA for Honda, whilst Nicolas Lapierre never looked likely to continue with the Russian marque in the WTCC, leaving two seats open at the team.
“There’s something wrong there that shows that there isn’t really the availability in the official teams,” added Valente about the driver market. “I got lucky with the fact that Honda didn’t renew Gabriele’s contract and things got shaken up and I ended up in the third LADA.
“The day the news came out about Gabriele not being renewed by Honda I was getting contracts from WestCoast Racing, Craft-Bamboo Racing and others about racing in TCR. I was speaking with a lot of teams because I knew there was no opportunity in the WTCC. Then that came up and it went well for me.”
The 23-year-old Frenchman also added that he had tactically aimed to produce strong qualifying results in the WTCC in order to get noticed, as he feels there is little change for a privateer driver to win a race in the championship.
“It’s difficult because it costs a lot of money to be a privateer, and the problem is that it costs a lot of money and you don’t even have a chance to fight for victories. I’ve done a few good performances this year, but it’s very, very tough.
“I knew that being fast in qualifying was going to be key. People obviously watch the races, but they also watch if you are able to go fast. If you are able to be fast then whatever happens in the race – you can crash, you can have a problem – they still know you’re fast. Fortunately I was fast in qualifying last year and I managed to do some good results in the races.
“I think I could have won a race two, but you’ve got to perform. I always push very hard in free practice to get the car ready for qualifying and when the qualifying comes you don’t really choose to let go and end up P8 or P10 to fight for the reverse grid. If you’ve got a Chevrolet or a Honda you’re going to work as hard as you can and then you’re going to see what your potential is.”