José María López “won’t change a thing” in terms of his approach in 2015

2014 FIA World Touring Car champion José María López says he will not change his approach to the 2015 season, after a record breaking first full season in the WTCC, although he his mindful that all of his rivals will be much closer this year.

López secured the title in Japan last year ahead of the Macau finale, only the third time the title hasn’t gone to the wire in the ten year history of the WTCC, but believes any change in approach will come from his competitors and not from himself.

“I’ve been thinking about this all winter. How should I react? How should I approach? But I think the change is for the others, for me it’s exactly the same,” said López. “I don’t think I have to try to do better than I did last year because for me it was a great year. It was a record breaking season in points and wins, so I just have to do the same as last year.

“I’m aware that the competition is going to be much harder, we can see already how they’re pushing more, Honda, Chevrolet, and even my team-mate Yvan, who has much more commitment now, so I can see it, but it doesn’t change anything for me as at the end of the day I have to try to do my best.”

López also expects that Citroën won’t be able to repeat their dominant form from last season, with the other manufacturers and independent teams having had more time to prepare for this season.

“I think it’s going to be much more competitive,” said López. “It’s normal when you have a big change in regulations, you have teams which make a big difference like we did last year, especially in the beginning. We did more testing, we interpreted the regulations more (successfully), but this year is different; Honda have been testing really hard, they’ve tested much more than us, you can see them pushing much more, so I think it’s going to be much more competitive from the beginning.

“The same with Chevrolet drivers; last year we arrived at the first race and so many drivers hadn’t tested the car before, but that’s not going to be the case. Also Lada have changed the car, so it’s going to be a much more competitive. I hope we’ll win the manufacturers’ championship, but I don’t think we’re going to win 17 races like last year, this year’s going to be much more difficult.”

López will also break tradition in the WTCC by opting out of running the #1 on his car for this season, instead continuing with his preferred race number, #37 for the 2015 season.

“I always had this number since my first year in Formula Renault, and I always like the idea of having a number which represents me,” he explained. “In some series you can have it and in other series you cannot, and in this case you can, so I’d really prefer to have my number, it’s the number that’s been with me, I won the championship with this number and I want to win it again with the number 37.”