Mat’o Homola rues lack of dry running before qualifying

20-year-old Slovakian driver Mat’o Homola will start from fourth on the grid for the first of today’s FIA European Touring Car Cup races at the Hungaroring, but believes the lack of track time in the dry conditions hampered his chance to get the best out of the SEAT León Cup Racer in qualifying.

Homola’s best lap was just four-tenths of a second from pace-setter Dusan Borkovic, in the identical SEAT León Cup Racer run by B3 Racing this weekend.

“I’m a little disappointed as we had some problems with the fuel pump which we have to somehow fix,” said Homola to TouringCarTimes. “Also we had some problems with the set-up. As we weren’t here on Friday because we were at the Budapest parade, which was a cool event, but all the other guys got to do some laps in dry conditions, while all practice on Saturday was in wet conditions, so we had no dry running (before qualifying).”

Homola, who finished runner-up in last year’s TC2T class in a BMW 320 TC to class champion Nikolay Karamyshev, has switched to the SEAT and the Single-Make Trophy class this year, which is set to be the leading class in this year’s ETCC.

“I think it will be really good, as we’re all the same, it’s not like with the Chevrolets and the BMWs last year where there was a huge difference, so I hope there won’t be such a difference in performance, and hopefully in the race I will be on the podium, and maybe on the highest place.”