Photo: WTCC Media

James Thompson rues shortening of the race in Shanghai

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James Thompson collected more points for Lada with an eighth place finish at the Shanghai International Circuit, and moves to within four points of 2012 GT1 champion Marc Basseng in the standings, but believed a better result was on the cards if the race hadn’t been shortened due to the weather conditions.

The 39-year-old was in the top ten in every session up to qualifying, missing out with just the 14th fastest time in Q1 – starting 13th on the grid for both races courtesy of the penalty for Volvo driver Thed Björk.

The two-time BTCC champion charged through to eighth place in race one, crossing the line less than a tenth of a second behind the Honda Civic of Gabriele Tarquini.

“The team did a great job to sort out a few things in the car that had held us back during Q1 yesterday,” said Thompson. “As a result of their hard work, the car was much faster today.

“Going from 13th place to eighth, in tricky conditions, is proof of that. My race engineer Marco Calovolo also made exactly the right decision to use slicks rather than rain tyres, so we had a very good feeling with the car on the circuit today. It’s just a shame from our perspective though that the race was shortened for three laps because of the weather, because those three laps could have given us the chance to do even better.”

Team-mate Kozlovskiy on the other hand suffered in race one, going the wet tyre route, a mistake also made by the two Chevrolets of Pepe Oriola and Rickard Rydell, though the 23-year-old Russian was still able to keep with the pack and finish 17th overall.

“Our decision to choose the rain tyres was the wrong one, and already after just a few laps I didn’t feel confident,” he said. “By the end of the race, the car was even harder to drive, so it wasn’t a good day. But at least I still managed to make up some places. Of course I wanted to overtake more cars but it was very difficult to find a place to pass, because the drivers in front of me were moving round to find the driest line.”