Menu: “We fight until the points say I cannot be champion”

Alain Menu has gone from one point down on Rob Huff leaving Zolder in April to being 71 points adrift heading into this weekend’s race at Oschersleben, but vows to keep fighting until the numbers say he’s out of the running.

he two-times British Touring Car Champion has been right in the title hunt right from the start of the year, taking victory in the second race at Curitiba and going on to win at Budapest and Porto, though two DNFs at Monza and in the rain-hit second race at Hungary has left him with a relatively high gap in the points standings to his two Chevrolet team-mates.

The 47-year-old Swiss driver was also on target for another race victory two weeks ago at Donington Park until an incident on the second lap whilst he was passing the BMW of Javier Villa for second.

“The second race was going very well, we had made some changes to the car, and I was going to win that race, but as we went into the chicane what could I do?” said Menu to TouringCarTimes.

“With Villa it was clean, it would have been okay but the problem is Tarquini hit Villa under-braking and Villa couldn’t slow down the way he wanted to and we touched, it cost Villa the race and with me, it cost me a win.”

Last year the Swiss-driver was forced into a supporting role early on in order to help ensure a Chevrolet driver won the championship, but with the dominating form of the RML Chevrolet team this season, taking 13 wins from the first 14 races, the situation is much different.

“Nobody else but a Chevrolet driver can win the championship, so I don’t think that will be an issue at the moment,” said Menu. “No, we fight until the points say I cannot be the champion anymore.”

The battle couldn’t be tougher between the Chevrolet drivers this season. Rob Huff has enjoyed unmatched consistency, with his worst result in the second race at Zolder where he finished sixth after contact with Gabriele Tarquini. Zolder was also where 2010 champion Yvan Muller recorded his only DNF of the year so far with a mechanical problem with his Chevrolet Cruze, but the Frenchman has been reining in his British team-mate bit by bit since Monza.

The gap between Muller and Huff heading to Germany is 15 points, the equivalent of just one third place finish with the current points system, whilst Menu is a little shy of three race wins behind, 71 points down. Though with ten races still to go there’s plenty of time for his team-mates to also run into some bad luck or for the points to be overhauled by consistently outscoring the #1 and #2 cars.

Menu won the first race at Oschersleben last year, thanks in part to the controversial black flag for Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff after a first corner incident with BMW’s Augusto Farfus.

“It’s not a bad track actually, it’s quite technical,” said Menu.

“The BMW has always been quick at Oschersleben, it’s very good for rear-wheel drive, so I think Oschersleben could be our worst track.”