Photo: PSP Images

MacDowall: “What happened robbed us of a podium”

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bamboo-engineering’s Alex MacDowall hopes to bounce back in his Championship challenge next weekend at the Moscow Raceway, after losing out last time out Salzburg as one of the drivers penalised after the controversial qualifying session.

The 22-year-old started as the highest placed driver that had been penalised by the stewards for going too slowly in the second part of qualifying and started in 12th place for the first race. MacDowall put on a valiant charge through to fifth in race one, and also took sixth place in race two, but with his main rivals Michel Nykjaer and team-mate James Nash scoring a win each thanks to their more favourable grid spots in both races, the Carlisle driver lost ground in both the overall and Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy, despite originally taking the class pole in qualifying.

“Austria was crazy,” said MacDowall. “It was just a set of circumstances really, a unique track where everyone needs a tow in qualifying and it all got a bit messy. (Tom) Chilton got the message over his radio to hold everyone up and then we all ended up with fines and penalties! I don’t know if all of the penalties will change anything, it was just a unique situation.”

“We should have scored more points, what happened robbed us of a podium, so we need to make amends for that. We’ve been a bit unlucky this year, they say you make your own luck but there wasn’t a lot I could do about all of that in Austria. I’m sure we’ll be competitive in Russia, it should be good.”

Moscow Raceway will be a new circuit to most of the drivers in the WTCC, being held on June 9th, and MacDowall hopes to make up ground at the Russian circuit.

“It all depends who gets used to the track the quickest,” said MacDowall. “It’s quite tight and twisty but there is a really long straight which should play to our hand. The twisty bits won’t really help us due to the (compensation) weight we have to carry but I’m going out there with the intention of getting on the podium and fighting for Independents wins.”