Michel Nykjaer says Target cars have lost something to Craft-Bamboo

Michel Nykjaer was the second best placed of the Target Competition drivers after qualifiying at Portimao for the TCR International Series, setting the ninth fastest time which gives him a front-row slot for the second race. The Dane admits there was a slight scare as he always fell out in Q1 which would have forced him to start 13th for both races.

“It was hard in qualifying, I was almost out of Q1,” he said to TouringCarTimes. “I was P13, so I came in and put new tyres on and was able to go sixth, so I was safe on just my last lap.

“For Q2 I was P9, my team-mate (Andrea) Belicchi was P11 and (Stefano) Comini was P7, so we’re near each other on the grid. I think we’re too far away from the Lukoil boys that have the same cars as us,” he added.

“They have tested and they’ve done something, so for us we need to find something to be more competitive, but of course we’re close to everybody, and we knew the Audi would be fast here.”

Nykjaer will start second on the grid for the reversed second race behind WestCoast Racing’s Kevin Gleason in the Honda Civic, and hopes to be able to take advantage of the comparatively slow starts that the TCR Hondas have in contrast to their WTCC counterparts.

“I think if I have a good start I should be able to have a very good result again. If you are behind a car on this circuit, the temperature goes up too high and you need to slow down, so I need to take the start and go from there.”