Set-up issues plague Opel in Friday testing in Georgia

The Opel Astra TCRs of DG Sport Compétition struggled for pace in the two-hour test session on Friday, but Belgian driver Pierre-Yves Corthals hopes time to work on a revised set-up on Saturday morning will bring them to the fore.

The Opels are running with the second highest weight penalty of 40kg as part of the TCR organisation’s Balance of Performance measures, but the speed of the Opel was not seen in testing, with Mat’o Homola the best-placed of the two drivers in 11th, 1.3 seconds off the pace, with Corthals an ominous 1.666 down on the best lap, that set by Zele Racing’s Ferenc Ficza.

“The car’s not working so well at all, so we’ve not had a good start,” said Corthals to TouringCarTimes. “We’re really heavy, but also the set-up of the car was really bad.

“We put the normal set-up on Homola’s car, and we put a new set-up on my car, but Homola was faster than me with the (base set-up), so we’ll try that on my car tomorrow. Unfortunately, you can’t change your whole set-up during a session as there are too many things to change, so we’ll just need to try in the practice tomorrow to get things right.”

Corthals drove for the team in the 2016 TCR Benelux season, but although he’s racing this weekend, his programme for the whole season is not yet confirmed.

“I’m really happy to be here, but I’m only confirmed for the first two races, here and Bahrain,” he explained. “I’d like to do more of the season, but we’ll have to wait and see.”