José María López: “There’s still a long way to go”

Citroën Total WTCC’s José María López leaves the Salzburgring with a 41 point lead over team-mate Yvan Muller, with Sébastien Loeb just a further four points adrift, but says there’s a long way to go in the Championship in respect of the drivers’ title.

López finished on the podium in the first race, moving one spot up from fourth on the grid, effectively at the expense of team-mate Sébastien Loeb. He had initially moved up to second, but fell behind Tom Coronel after a mistake at the chicane.

“I had a good start and benefitted a little after the first corner incident between Tom and Seb (Loeb). And then I knew it was OK for me already. In my head said just stay there, and I tried and I missed the braking point a little bit on the first chicane. We need to see why, as I wasn’t really pushing too hard, but I think Yvan (Muller) took it a bit easier on the first few laps, so maybe my tyre pressure was up too much, so I lost the front and then Tom (Coronel) passed me. I tried to push, but I felt my front tyres were gone, and I couldn’t really close the gap to pass Tom on the back straight.

In the second race, López was involved, albeit unawares, with the incident that took out team-mate Yvan Muller and the two Ladas of Rob Huff and James Thompson, which saw the race suspended. By the time the red flag was out he was already up to fifth, and when the race resumed, he spent the next few laps picking off the four Hondas one-by-one to take victory.

“I knew I had a very good car,” said López. “In the beginning we went for a more aggressive set-up, we knew that the back straight was very important…we went about seven degrees less on the rear-win, I knew it was a risk but I knew if we wanted to go forward we had to do it, and it paid off.

“After I passed Gabriele I just minded the tyres after (what happened) a few years ago, and I still had the memory from yesterday when spinning at the high-speed corner (Turn 9), and so I just tried to finish the race, it was a great feeling as winning when you start from the back is always a really nice feeling.”

López admitted post race that his strategy for the second race was to just take advantage of his grid position, which saw him start ahead of his two Citroën team-mates, to outscore them, and didn’t have a victory in mind.
“I was aiming just to keep in front of them and minimise the damage that happened because of qualifying yesterday. Even if it’s a big margin, 40 points is only about two races and if you’re not on the pace and your team-mates are quicker than you, it can easily be (recovered). We still have a long way to go.”