Hugo Valente unhappy not to score first Chevrolet TC1 win

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente put it down to a poor start which cost him the chance to claim the first victory for Chevrolet RML at the Hungaroring, but expects the Cruze TC1 will be more competitive than close rivals Honda once the teams leave the Slovakiaring next week.

Valente had scored the reversed grid pole position through misfortune after his team-mate Dusan Borkovic was excluded from qualifying when his car failed the ride height test during the session, and was put to the back of the grid. This rescued the weekend for Valente, who had originally qualified 11th, where he was set to start both races until that point.

“I did a huge mistake on my last lap in the final corner of Q2 and without that mistake I would have been P10 without (Borkovic’s) exclusion, so I was very disappointed, but then poor Dusan, he’s a nice guy and it would have been better for him and for the team if it was someone else who got disqualified,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes.

In race one, a problematic first few corners saw Valente drop behind the two Ladas of James Thompson and Rob Huff, but was able to recover to pick up a solitary point with tenth, but in race two a slow start saw Münnich Motorsport’s Gianni Morbidelli take the lead into the first corner from second on the grid, with Honda’s Tiago Monteiro moving up to second position ahead of him.

“I’m obviously not going to complain, it’s the second podium in three meetings…but I’m disappointed as my start was pretty bad, and that was the key point of the whole race. If I had a better start, maybe I could have done what Gianni did and held off Tiago behind, but you never know,” added Valente.

“I’m a bit disappointed as I really wanted to score the first victory for RML and for Campos, but still some good points, so I can’t complain too much.”

With Honda seeming to have more pace than the Chevrolets in Hungary, after the Cruzes were the clear second fastest car to the all-conquering Citroën C-Elysées in Morocco and France, the 21-year-old puts the change of order primarily down to the circuit configurations, and expects the Chevrolet Cruze, which has often been the fastest car in the speed traps, to be back on top from the Salzburgring.

“In Marrakech and in Paul Ricard we were a bit ahead of Honda, but I think it has a lot to do with the layout of the track,” he explained. “Even last year they were quite fast here and in Slovakia as well, I think tracks with long corners and a lot of corners are good for them, so I’m expecting to suffer a bit in Slovakia because I think they will be fast, but we’ve got Spa, we’ve got Suzuka and the Salzburgring with a lot of straight lines – the fast circuits are going to be good for us, so altogether it balances out.”