MacDowall downbeat despite top five position

Alex MacDowall was hoping for better from the Chevrolet Cruze after qualifying P5 for the first round of the season. The 20-year-old believing track surface and straight-line speed are the main issues.

MacDowall set a flying lap in the final moments of the session to pop up into fifth position, just two places behind team-mate Plato separated by the Triple Eight Vauxhall Vectra of James Nash.

After a few of his runs were held up in traffic, MacDowall clocked a time of 48.658 to qualify within a tenth of his double-championship winning team-mate, but believed the Cruze could do better.

“The car doesn’t really do what you want it to do, it’s not really an easy car to drive,” explained MacDowall to TouringCarTimes.

“I don’t think it was a bad time, but I think we had the car to maybe on the front-row, but those turbos have just got the pace at the minute. Just looking at the speed traps they’re seven miles an hour quicker, which (pause) isn’t really fair” joked Alex.

“Hopefully in the race run maybe they’ll eat their tyres, struggle on exits, run wide…”

MacDowall believes Team Dynamics are the main threat to the Silverline Chevrolet team at the moment.

“They’ve got a big budget, they’ve got Honda behind them, they’ve got a good chassis, and now they’ve got the turbo engine which gives them good punch out of the corners which is what they lacked in previous years. I think they’re the team to beat and you’re going to get the odd Vectra that pops in there with the turbo engine.”

“We just need strong points in the first few races in the season, and then hopefully TOCA will penalise the turbos, we’ll see how it goes.”