Nykjaer rues qualifying error

Michel Nykjaer’s qualifying was cut short after an error in qualifying, clipping the corner marker tyre, damaging his SEAT León TDI and ending his qualifying session on his first lap.

The Danish driver had been the fastest of the all of the SEAT drivers through both of Saturday’s practice sessions, but with the error on his first flying lap, set no time and will start both races from the back of the grid.

“When I came to the second chicane where the tyre was, I maybe turned in a little bit in too early and hit the wheels, not much, but it was enough to break my right-front,” said Nykjaer.

The car also broke the sump, leaking fluid on the track which caused the session to be red flagged as the SEAT León TDI was recovered.

With the new qualifying procedure, cars that qualify outside of the top ten in Q1 will start in those positions in both races, which means Nykjaer will share the final row with Proteam Racing’s Javier Villa in races one and two.

“It’s going to be very difficult tomorrow. We have the speed, so it’ll be very good if we can have some more ‘qualifying’ laps, but it was my mistake, and tomorrow it’s going to be very difficult. It’s just to see how far we can move up and that’s that.”