Photo: TCR Media

Jordi Gené happy with qualifying as best of the SEATs

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Team Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s Jordi Gené qualified in second position for the seventh race of the 2015 TCR International Series at Portimao, just one spot ahead of team-mate Pepe Oriola. The Spaniard hopes to make the most of the two races tomorrow after slipping to sixth in the standings after a mixed weekend in Valencia.

Gené was just under eight-tenths of a second behind Danish driver Nicki Thiim’s Engstler Motorsport Audi TT, who is only entered for this weekend, and so is the best of the full-season entrants for the championship and also the top placed of the ten SEATs which are taking part this weekend.

“With so many SEATs the first target is to be the first SEAT which is difficult,” said Gené to TouringCarTimes. “Pepe (Oriola) is very quick, Target also has very quick drivers with (Stefano) Comini, (Andrea) Belicchi and with Michel (Nykjaer) as well, so there are six or seven really good SEATs to beat.

“On top of that, I know the Audi as I did the development of that car, and with such a good driver like Thiim, it’s in pole position, which proves the initial Balance of Performance that Nicola Larini did was quite accurate. But different circuits will suit some cars more than others,” he added. “Sometimes, like in China, the Honda was very good, in Valencia it was us and here it’s Audi, so I think no one should get crazy about that and let the championship bed-in a little bit.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow races where Gené will start second for the first race, but courtesy of the reversed grid will start ninth for race two, the 44-year-old added:

“It’s very close fighting in this championship, but the good thing is this circuit is much easier to overtake than Valencia. It’s wider so we have more chances to fight in race two. I also feel a little bit of a better rhythm amongst the Craft-Bamboo cars; Pepe and I have been more consistently up there, but it’s so close, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

“Gianni (Morbidelli)’s sixth and he has a good engine with a lot of top speed, so it’s going to be very difficult to overtake him and he can pick up a lot of points if he’s clever, but we need to take some points away from him as I think when we go to Monza the Hondas are going to be very fast.”