Lada happy with improvements made

Lada seem to look at the WTCC races as a chance to have intensive tests before introducing the new Priora, which will feature a new engine and many other important updates. At least, this seems to be the opinion of Jaap van Lagen, the fastest of the three Ladas.

The Dutchman said he is happy with the improvements brought in with the new engine, but sees a lot of work ahead to be done:”This was actually pretty much where I expected to be,” said Van Lagen.

“Thanks to the new engine our gap to the cars at the front has reduced slightly, but we still have a lot of work to do and plenty of ground to make up. That’s the reason why we are here, as the lessons learned in competition are more valuable than those you find anywhere else. We’re going to keep working hard with the aim of making decent progress throughout the season.”

Kyrill Ladygin had an accident during the second free practice session. His car was repaired, but the Russian lost precious track time which prevented him from doing better than 23rd during qualifying: “We lost a bit of track time with our excursion in the morning, but it shows we are trying! Bearing in mind that these races are more of a test for us than anything else, I just concentrated on doing a solid job during qualifying .”

Team owner and driver Viktor Shapovalov also had a fuel pressure problem, but the problem was solved in time for the session. Like his drivers, he admits there’s still a lot to be done before being competitive: “We had a bit of a fuel pressure problem in the morning, but thankfully we were able to solve it in time for the qualifying session,” he commented.

“The car felt fine, but of course it’s clear that we have a lot of work ahead of us in what is only our first full season as a registered manufacturer. We need to keep our expectations realistic and just focus on improving our performance step by step. But we also race because we enjoy it, and we all had a lot of fun driving the car today on this great track.”

Lada are racing on this track for the first time, after entering the championship in Valencia last year under the name of Russian Bears, without works support, so this is the first visit to Curitiba for the three drivers of the Russian manufacturer.