M1RA Motorsport’s Luca Engstler says he is targeting strong “single results” in the pair of TCR Europe contests at the Red Bull Ring after admitting it “will be tough” to fight for the championship following misfortune in the opening rounds.
Engstler, who has been on the backfoot from the very start with a huge shunt in qualifying at the Hungaroring season-opener, currently sits ninth in the standings some 53 points adrift of leader Julien Briché.
He told TouringCars.Net he is keen to prove himself and the team with strong “single results” as he believes he may already be out of title contention.
“As you can see we’re really off in the championship, so I’m just looking for single results,” he said.
“I want to keep the car in one piece, score good points.
“I think it would be quite tough with the big crash we had in the Hungaroring to fight for the title, but at least we can show that we have strong pace, a good team and a good car.”
Engstler continued to say he had been driving conservatively in a day of strong practice pace which saw him place third in both sessions while a total of seven drivers received black flags for repeatedly infringing track limits.
“Sure it’s very difficult on this track, but it makes no sense to go wide today and then be within the lines tomorrow,” he said.
“That’s the reason why my fastest laps were always within track limits.
I didn’t do my theoretical best lap time because I was just a bit too smooth in parts of the corners, because I didn’t want to go wide and then in the end we have a proper answer as to whether we have the speed or not.
“We were a bit on the safe side today and we’ll try to take a bit more risk tomorrow.”