Photo: Citroën Racing

José María López rues missed pole, aiming for points not wins on Sunday

Citroën Racing’s José María López missed out on pole position for the seventh round of the 2016 World Touring Car Championship at Vila Real, with the two-time champion saying a mistake or mechanical issue caused him to have a problem at the final corner on his shootout lap and wound up down the escape road.

López is now consigned to starting the main race from fifth on the grid, and from sixth for the opening race at the narrow Portuguese street circuit. López is upset with himself with the mistakes made in qualifying, which also saw him only just escape Q2 after a brush with the wall at the start of the session.

“The conditions were difficult, you could see everyone was on the limit, but it’s not an excuse,” said López to TouringCarTimes. “If you want to be on pole you need to not make mistakes, and do like Tiago (Monteiro) did. He did a very good qualifying and he’s on pole and deserved it. Street circuits are always a little bit more difficult, and the heat and the bumps made things more tricky.”

Looking ahead to his race strategy, the championship leader all but ruled out winning on Sunday, with the aim to look after his points lead over rivals Monteiro, Yvan Muller and Nicky Catsburg.

“I have to try to minimise my losses. I have a good lead, and there are five races to go after this so I have an error margin of 20 points per race,” said López. “From the position I am, on this kind of circuit it’ll be difficult to win, so I just need to try a good two races and score points and that’s it.

“I don’t care if I don’t win another race before the end of the year, the important thing for me is to win the championship. This is a very difficult track to overtake, so I just need to score points and not lose too many in comparison with Tiago and Yvan, and Nicky (starting second for the opening race) could be looking to score more points than anyone else.”