Santiago Urrutia was delighted with the pace he could extract from his Lynk & Co 03 TCR today, following another impressive display of talent in his rookie World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) season.
Currently twelfth in the championship standings, Urrutia hasn’t always been able to turn his pace into points on race day, but there have been plenty of glimmers of potential along the way.
One such glimmer was the Uruguayan’s qualifying display earlier this afternoon, which saw him reach the ultra-competitive top-five Q3 shootout.
Had it not been for a brake lock-up right towards the end of his lap, Urrutia could well have taken his début pole position, but instead he would have to settle for third place on the race three grid.
“I’m super happy about my performance, [I] made it into q3 for the second time of the year,” he said.
“Thank you to Cyan Racing because the car was amazing, and was good enough to put it on pole but I did a mistake on the last sector.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum however, Urrutia’s title-contending team-mates Yann Ehrlacher and Yvan Muller struggled for speed by comparison.
With one eye seemingly always on the team’s success, Urrutia believes that he and his stablemates will have to devise a strategy between their cars to boost the title aspirations of Ehrlacher and Muller.
“It’s sad not to see Yann and Yvan at the top obviously, but ok we will focus on tomorrow.
“The car is quick so I hope we will take as many points as we can and take points away from the competitors.
“The three races are going to be long and tough because we have Yvan a little bit at the back, and also Yann, so we will have to make a good strategy for tomorrow. But thank you to Cyan and Lynk & Co for the great car today.”
Urrutia will start race one from seventh on the grid tomorrow morning, with the race set to get underway at 09:15 CEST (08:15 GMT).