Kevin Gleason takes strong points haul with consistent run in Portimao

WestCoast Racing’s Kevin Gleason leaves Portugal fifth in the standings, nine points behind Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s Jordi Gené and just ten behind team-mate Gianni Morbidelli after scoring his second podium of the season at the Autodromó Intercacional do Algarve.

After qualifying tenth on the grid, Gleason put on a steady drive to finish seventh, despite having to defend against fast-charging local José Monroy of Veloso Motorsport in the closing stages of the race, while he made most of the reversed grid pole position for race two, tucking in behind Michel Nykjaer’s Target Competition SEAT León at the start.

Gleason’s second race was less eventful than many of his championship counterparts, giving way to the Liqui Moly Team Engstler Audis which later would run into their own troubles to still grab second at the finish, while front-runners such as Stefano Comini, Pepe Oriola and Gianni Morbidelli all failed to finish at least one race on Sunday.

“Of course it’s good fun to be in a hard battle with someone, and in this case I was quite comfortable to be out on my own running,” said Gleason to TouringCarTimes. “Sometimes it can be a little more difficult though, as you have to focus and one little mistake could ruin the comfort zone that you’re in.”

“I’m just trying to be consistent and finish every race, of course you want to be fighting up front but if you can get to the finish in one piece and score some points that’s good too.”

The next round of the TCR International Series takes place at Monza, where Gleason’s experience circuit is limited to a shakedown run of the new Honda Civic TCR.

“It’ll be great to go to Monza as it’s such a historic track. It’s tough to tell where we’ll stack up as it changes from track to track,” he added “Everywhere we’ve gone it’s changed, and it’s also hard to tell what’ll happen with the Balance of Performance.”