José María López: “I need to learn from what happened”

José María López followed up the worst weekend of his career in terms of results with his second-worst at Portugal, scoring two fifth place finishes after qualifying fifth due to a mistake in qualifying, but maintained a strong gap in the championship to his rivals heading to his home race.

“In the end, I came with 105 points lead in the championship and I’m leaving with 101, so I lost only four points so I think it’s a very positive weekend,” said López to TouringCarTimes.

“I’m still in a very good situation, but I need to learn from what happened. I maybe wasn’t as comfortable with the car as I was at say the Nürburgring, maybe it’s because of the heat, maybe the 80kg (of compensation weight), I think the Citroën drivers generally struggled a bit here. But the competition has also improved, they’re stronger.

With the six week gap to the next round at Termas de Río Hondo in Argentina, Citroën will test in order to try and stave away the advances of Honda, who were faster throughout the weekend in Portugal.

“We have a little break with a one day test programme to try and find some things, and the next race is Argentina, one of the best ones for me. Racing at home is always special, and I think I can deliver a proper weekend,” said López. “Even here, yesterday in Q3 after sector two I was four-tenths in front of Tiago, so I know I still have the speed and I know everything is good, but sometimes I do mistakes, I’m human and I’ll learn from them.”