Target Competition’s Dušan Borković says his results in the two TCR Europe races were ‘not so bad’ considering the lack of straight-line speed the Hyundai runners suffered at Spa-Francorchamps.
The Serbian racer finished fourth in race one – albeit ten seconds adrift of championship leader Mikel Azcona’s CUPRA – and recovered to seventh in the reverse-grid race after making a poor start.
He explained to TouringCars.Net why he dropped down to 12th position on the first lap.
“I always have a good start and always calm on the start,” said Borković. “But now I made a stupid mistake and I didn’t clearly see the five second board and I just heard everyone pushing the engines, and then I wanted to push the throttle but then I didn’t push the launch control.
But then I accidentally squeezed the neutral, it was a total disaster and a lot of people overtook me, especially [Mikel] Azcona which was a disaster because I think that I could manage to fight with him.
“Then [Danny] Kroes hit me in the first lap [at Les Combes] and I fell to 12th position, and then I picked up some pace, I overtook some guys and then I finished P7 again which is not bad considering everything that is happening.
Borković believes that the weekend was not bad in terms of scoring points, given the pace differential between the Hyundai and the Volkswagen Group (VAG) runners.
“I lost some points – 11 points – in the championship which is also not so bad. Ozcona is doing really good all season and being really consistent and the car is really fast so I hope that they have to change something for the next race.
“I don’t want to be too aggressive to anybody but they have to do it better. The others were faster [this weekend] by two seconds, they just couldn’t overtake because all of them – Azcona, Briché, Potty and Vernay they were fighting between themselves. But if they were in front they would be two seconds faster than everyone.”
After stating yesterday that he would ‘stop racing’ because of the danger presented by Hyundai’s lack of top-end pace, Borković is hopeful that the BoP will favour the Hyundai’s more next time out at the Hungaroring.
“I hope that they will bring the Hyundai on the normal ride height and the normal power and then they can play with the compensation weight,” he said. “We are heavier than them, we are slower than them, we have less power and more drag, we are higher, there’s like a million things.
“In all championships the Hyundai’s struggle and we [in TCR Europe] have all the long circuits. Only Hungaroring can be good for us then you have Monza fast and Barcelona fast so we will be nowhere. Then you you P4 or some reverse grid or whatever.”
“Yesterday I was angry because I was P5/P6 in the qualy, I was quicker than [Kris] Richard and now he has won the race because he was P10 so maybe it’s better to slow down in qualy to be P10! But this is not the racing I’m always giving everything for myself.”
When asked if the cars would suit the twisty Hungaroring layout, Borković was doubtful unless significant changes are made to the Balance of Performance.
He also believes that comparing the BoP at WTCR circuits and TCR Europe circuits is not an effective system due to the differing nature of circuits on the calendars of the respective series.
“If it’s like this then we will not be stronger because they showed in the second sector [at Spa] that they were stronger than us. On acceleration they the Volkswagen cars are much faster and have much more power and the Audis and VWs are now much faster than they were at the beginning of the season.
“As I’m telling you the difference with the WTCR races is completely different as we are on the much faster circuits, where we have a clear disadvantage. Maybe in WTCR they will not have such a disadvantage but here we will have a lot.
“Because now it has been two rounds now where Volkswagen Group is faster, like Zandvoort Audi was uncatchable and also CUPRA. But I don’t want to be the only one who is crying but people are risking their lives and I am crazy about it because you are risking to do something which is impossible and we are lucky that there were not so many crashes this weekend.”