ComtoYou Racing’s Mehdi Bennani believed his success ballast ‘was like having a passenger in the car’ as he took third in round eight of the TCR Europe series in Barcelona.
Bennani and second place team-mate Sami Taoufik made it a ComtoYou Racing double podium on Sunday afternoon, and the 37-year-old was very pleased with the result of both him and his younger rival.
“I’m really very, very happy for the two podiums that we scored for Audi and Comtoyou,” said Bennani.
“If you asked me to tell you about the hardest podium result I had ever scored, I would say it was this one!
“With 60kg of ballast, it was like I had a passenger in the car with me and it was even worse in race conditions with older tyres.
“Sami did a fantastic job and I’m very happy with what we were able to do this weekend and to score so many points, I don’t think we are so bad.
The former WTCR driver is now third in the Drivers Standings and just a point behind Dan Lloyd as the series heads to Belgium in a fortnights time, and admitted he’s in a good position in the championship.
“We hope we will also achieve a good result in two weeks’ time in Spa, but it’s going to be tricky as the championship battle is so tight so all we can do is hope for the best and see what happens.”
Just 13 points separate the leading two drivers in the championship, with Mike Halder having taken over the lead of the series following Sunday’s second race in Barcelona.
The TCR Europe series continues at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps between October 22-24.