Photo: WTCC Media

Career best WTCC result for Mikhail Kozlovskiy in Morocco

On the one-year anniversary of his first race appearance in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, Russia’s Mikhail Kozlovskiy secured the best result of his career for the LADA Sport Lukoil team in Marrakech, finishing fifth in race two behind two Citroëns and two Chevrolets.

The 24-year-old Russian was able to stay out of trouble at the start of the second race, where a number of cars came together in separate incidents, and was also luckier than his two team-mates to not run into any technical difficulties, and worked his way forward to sixth position, which later became fifth after Proteam driver Mehdi Bennani’s exclusion for being underweight.

“I’m really happy with my top five finish in the very first round of the season,” said Kozlovskiy. “Both races were really tough and almost all the teams faced various kinds of problems – crashes, technical issues, etc. Luckily, the team kept all three cars safe and sound, which is extremely important with the next round in France so near.

“My personal goal for this weekend in Morocco was to finish both races and avoid any contact that would have damaged the car, but I managed to keep some formidable opponents behind me quite successfully and my pace was stable. With all of our teething problems solved, we will achieve even more, that’s for sure. This is my second visit to the Morocco street circuit, so my knowledge of the track helped a bit, but the high air temperatures made it a real challenge.”

James Thompson also scored points for the Russian manufacturer in the more subdued first race, coming home tenth and claiming a solitary point, despite smoke permeating the cabin for the final three laps, which saw the British driver forced to miss the second and race and head to the medical centre.

Rob Huff’s Lada debut was quite tough as well, struggling with a vibration in qualifying which ultimately played its part in not being able to make Q2, and then retiring from race one with a misfire, which was repaired for race two, but he was only able to complete a few laps in the race and wasn’t officially classified in the results.