Jean-Karl Vernay optimistic of title chances ahead of the new season

Jean-Karl Vernay finished the test session at the Rustavi circuit second quickest today, just 0.016 seconds behind the SEAT of Ferenc Ficza, and the Frenchman hopes that now as team leader at Team WRT, he’s in with a strong chance of winning the drivers’ title in his sophomore season.

Vernay’s lost former team-mate Stefano Comini to Audi-equipped squad Comtoyou Racing, but will gain a new team-mate from the third race of the season at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

“I’m very happy to stay with Volkswagen,” said Vernay to TouringCarTimes. “We’re going to try to do better than last year, but it’s not going to be easy. I have the same team, I think I have the best team, so we have all the ingredients to have a good season, we’ll have to see how the other brands go.”

Vernay will compete in the first two races alone at the Leopard-backed team, but says it’ll be the cooperation of a team-mate at the races, rather than the help in analysing the telemetry which will be the more important loss.

“Without (Stefano’s) data, I’m not worried too much,” he said. “I learned a lot from Stefano, but that was more about how to race with people in the pack, but apart from one time in Sochi, I was always a little bit quicker than him last year.

“Of course, to have someone’s data is good, but for us it was not a huge help. I’m more concerned about the racing, because when you have a team-mate, he may not open the door but you know things will be fair and you can work together to work your way through the pack and make a strategy, but there’s no strategy now I’m by myself.”

Vernay has also been recruited by Volkswagen as the official test driver for their customer programme during the off season, and has accumulated additional kilometres in testing alongside SEAT development driver Jordi Gené, which he hopes will play in his favour.