James Thompson first to congratulate former team Lada on their Russian success
Former Lada driver James Thompson was amongst the first to congratulate his former team on their surprise pair of 1-2 finishes at the Moscow Raceway today, with Thompson also celebrating a successful weekend of the season with Münnich Motorsport in the Chevrolet Cruze, winning the independents’ classification in both races.
Thompson, who drove for Lada in 2009 in the manufacturer’s first season with a factory programme, then again on their return from 2012-2015 before leaving the team after three races last year, joined Lada drivers Nicky Catsburg and Gabriele Tarquini in the post-race press conference after completing a near perfect weekend in the WTCC’s privateer class scoring the class pole and two victories.
“Everybody is very happy for Lada after all the effort they put in over the years,” said Thompson.
“It’s great to see them win in such dominant fashion but it’s nice for Nick to have won his first race as well so big congratulations to them and, personally for me, it’s nice to see them do well, so a heartfelt well done.
“The opening race (for me) was a little bit difficult because I got such a bad start and had to let everybody and work my way through the pack. There was no point trying to do anything stupid, especially with the main race coming up; to cut a long story short we did the best job we could but these (Lada) guys were significantly quicker and we were made to really fight. Once the race settled down, sixth place was a really good finish for us.”
