Mikhail Kozlovskiy hopes for strong race despite steering trouble

LADA Sport Lukoil’s Mikhail Kozlovskiy is happy with his qualifying performance at Spa-Francorchamps, a circuit which he and may other drivers on the grid are discovering for the first time this weekend.

The 24-year-old Russian outqualified team-mate James Thompson and the Chevrolet Cruze of René Münnich, despite suffering with a steering issue.

“It’s positive because from the morning we had quite a lot of problems with the steering, which we weren’t able to resolve before Q1,” said Kozlovskiy to TouringCarTimes. “We found a compromise which wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t as bad as it was in FP2, and I managed to do quite a good lap.

“I think the result in qually is the best we could have achieved today considering the conditions.”

The Lada driver hopes for consistency during the races, which is likely to be the only chance for Lada to score points, through the attrition of others, as the Granta Sport is struggling to compete with the cars of Chevrolet, Honda and Citroën at the fast Spa-Francorchamps track.

“It will be nice to complete both races because it’s very useful for me. It’s my first time here, and the track’s a little bit longer than normal so it’s taking me more time for me to get used to it.

“You have to learn it step-by-step, as if you crash here it could be quite a big shunt, so it’s important not to overdrive the car and go over the limit, and if we fix the problem with the steering, as we’re actually going to change the steering rack completely, I can hope for a better pace.”