Sergey Afanasyev denies team orders as he bids to bounce back from tough wet qualifying
Sergey Afansyev will start the first race in eighth in Macau. The Craft-Bamboo driver concedes that the car was not balanced well enough for the wet conditions which, according to the Russian, coupled to a generous Balance of Performance for the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs, allowed Leopard Racing to score a 1-2 in qualifying.
“I don’t think it’s only about Balance of Performance”, said the Lukoil-backed driver to TouringCarTimes. “Of course everybody knows that BoP is on the side of Honda because their drivers have struggled a lot, and every time a fast driver like Rob Huff or Tiago Monteiro steps in, they are very, very fast. With Volkswagen it’s quite similar, it’s normal for the championship to have different winners, and for sure there is some difference because Volkswagens and SEATs are equal, and yet they are lighter and they have a lower ride height, so that’s one side of the gap they built from us.”
Apart from the BoP, the Russian concedes the setup was not correct for the Craft-Bamboo SEATs: “The other side of the story is that I think they went for a completely wet setup, which allowed them a lot of grip and traction, which we didn’t manage to do. We are where we are, and we will bounce back tomorrow.”
When asked what he is going to do tomorrow, the Russian said: “I am going to win, why not? We are going to push hard to win. The title will surely not be far away from our garage anyway.” The Russian therefore denied any team orders within the team to help James Nash or Pepe Oriola clinch the title tomorrow.
Afanasyev believes that regardless of the track conditions the red SEATs will bounce back from today’s difficult qualifying: “If it’s dry we will be able to fight back. On this track it’s all about keeping the car between the white lines, this is a gamble circuit in a gamble city, so you never know. If it rains tomorrow we will have a fully wet setup and I’m quite sure we will be able to fight. I want to thank the team and the engineer for the work they are doing, I’m sure it will allow us to bounce back.”
