Photo: TCR Media

James Nash critical of Volkswagen Balance of Performance

James Nash, who emerged as the fastest Craft-Bamboo driver despite a 30-kilo ballast, believes the Balance of Performance measures are too kind on the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs.

Nash will start the first race of the Macau season finale from seventh, while title rival Stefano Comini will share the front row with fellow Leopard Racing driver Jean-Karl Vernay
“It’s quite clear that SEAT, and our team in particular, struggled today, so we have a lot of work to do”, admitted the Lukoil-backed driver.

“I don’t know if it’s down to the Balance of Performance or Leopard Racing are particularly good in the wet, but (a) 5 seconds (gap from pole position) is a bit too much. We’ll have to do our work and hope for the dry tomorrow.”
In case of rain tomorrow, Nash does not believe the team will be able to close the gap to Volkswagen, regardless of what they do to fix the problems they experienced today: “Honestly, whatever we do we are not going to find five seconds with a set-up change. Pepe (Oriola), Sergey (Afanasyev) and myself are not five seconds off Comini and Vernay. What I think they’re doing is they’re running a softer car, which is not very good in the dry, and BoP is helping them out with that. As a consequence, when it rains they have a better car in the wet. They (Volkswagen) have been allowed to have such a good BoP for so long.”

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As for the championship, Nash will not change the attitude he has had for the entire season, as the Brit feels he needs to finish both races and maximise his opportunities in order to clinch the title.

“My strategy has never changed all season, I need to finish and maximise the points I can collect, and I will do it. There’s going to be some traffic and inter-team battles, Vernay still has a chance (to win the championship) for instance and I don’t think he will hand victory over to Comini, so anything can happen. I’m not worried about it, I’ll just score as many points as I can and we’ll see what’s happened at the end of the weekend.”

James Nash is now 13 points ahead of title rival Stefano Comini.