Points leader Stefano Comini divides opinion with driving style in Portugal

Target Competition’s Stefano Comini put on a strong fight in Portugal for fourth, eventually settling for fifth in Portimao, but his style was divisive on race day after contact with rivals Pepe Oriola and Gianni Morbidelli in race one, and with Sergey Afanasyev in race two.

The battle between Comini, Oriola and Morbidelli was the focus of the first race, just outside of the podium spots at Engstler’s Nicki Thiim, Craft-Bamboo’s Jordi Gené and the other Engstler car of Lorenzo Veglia comfortably settled in to the top three spots.

Comini was fighting against Oriola throughout the race, eventually losing the spot in lap seven into Turn 2, but then collected Morbidelli’s Honda when he rejoined the circuit and spun around and into Oriola’s car, taking the Spaniard out of the race while Comini went on to finish in fifth position.

“This is my character, this is my style, a lot of show and a lot of fights,” said Comini to TouringCarTimes.

“I think race one was a good one, but the result was not so good. I had a lot of fun and I think I demonstrated that I think I could race harder than Morbidelli and Oriola, and it’s not so bad for my championship as Morbidelli didn’t finish the race.”

“For race two it was different,” he said. “The car didn’t work well, I had a lot of wheel-spin on the front but I could fight, but I was third after the contact with Afanasyev which broke my rear bumper. The rub on the tyre was really bad and at the end and I had a puncture.”

Comini was caught and passed by Kelvin van der Linde in the Audi TT, which were the cars to beat this weekend, but the points leader wasn’t happy with the South African’s behaviour on track.

“I was not happy as it was his first time here in the championship and you can’t come here and hit the championship leader like a pig,” he exclaimed. “After that I just gave him the signal to pass, as for me the championship is important and the Audi isn’t in it.”

The next round is effectively the Swiss driver’s home circuit, but he echoes the concerns of his fellow SEAT drivers that the Italian track will be more suited to the power of the Honda and the low aero of the Audi TT.

“At Monza I’m at home as it’s my home track. I’m not Italian, I’m Swiss, but we haven’t got a track and it’s only 50km from Logano. I think we’ll have a lot of problems with Honda and Audi though, as they’ll be very fast on the straights, so I think it’ll be a hard race.”