James Thompson excited by first day progress

James Thompson qualified in 15th place in the first race for the all new Lada Granta Sport at the Hungaroring, despite only being able to set one timed lap in qualifying before a minor electrical fault ended the session early.

The two-time British Touring Car champion impressed with ninth in free practice two before going eighth fastest on his first run in qualifying, with the Granta slowing to a stop on its second lap at Turn 5.

“It was just electrics,” said Thompson to TouringCarTimes. “The one issue we’ve got at the moment is we’ve got very little power steering…so it’s hard work in there at the minute, so I’m not really looking forward to the full distance tomorrow.”

“We were trying to resolve a few issues so maybe something’s happened with the electrics”

However, Thompson’s confident of the pace of the new Lada as it makes its first appearance, and for the team returning to the Championship for the first time since 2009.

“Considering the last time, when we rolled out the Priora, we started what was four seconds off the pace, but this time we’re starting what appears to be at best shall we say a second, so that’s a good starting point considering it’s our first test day.”

“There’s a lot of potential to unlock in this car, we won’t unlock it this weekend but it’s there, but it’s always good if you can roll a car out of the truck and be surprising. Give us to the end of this year and at the start of next year, I’d be disappointed if we weren’t fighting for the top six every time, which is cautiously optimistic.”

With the session ending early, the Lada Sport team have access to more fresh tyres for tomorrow’s races and Thompson’s hopeful of showing more potential in the warm-up, targeting a top ten result and a successful pair of race runs.

The Lada is not eligible for points this weekend, and is also carrying additional weight as it’s nationally homologated.

As a non-points scoring car, it would not have been eligible to take part in Q2 had it made it through Q1, in accordance with Article 118 of the FIA WTCC Sporting Regulations, which states that “Only cars that are entitled to score points in the Championship may take part in Q2.”. This means the best that Thompson could have qualified would have been 12th.