Hugo Valente says breaking up the Citroëns is achievable

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente was the fastest driver behind three of the factory Citroëns of José María López, Sébastien Loeb and Yvan Muller after testing at the Nürburgring , and the French driver says he believes that second place in tomorrow’s qualifying session is possible with the Chevrolet RML Cruze.

Valente scored his first podium of the season two weeks ago in Hungary, and qualified second on the grid behind Yvan Muller, and is aiming for a repeat performance at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, which reverts to a more traditional one hour timed format this weekend.

“I think López is going to be really hard to beat but I think P2 is achievable in qualifying, that’s my aim coming into this weekend,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes. “I’m at that place where I’d rather be strong in race one and show that I can be the fastest of the Chevrolets and fight with the Citroëns, than aim for a good grid position for race two.”

With the reversed grid offering up a stronger than normal potential for victory at the Nürburgring, a track where like the Hungaroring it is set to be very tricky to pass, the 22-year-old French driver doesn’t fancy making the race two gamble and plans to focus on his overall qualifying and first race performance.

“In terms of achievement and satisfaction, I think it’s more important to do a podium in race one than a win in race two, but then I’m still to win a race so I won’t really know till that happens,” said Valente. “But we’ve seen in the past even if you’re completely off the pace in qualifying you can start from the front-row and win race two, that was almost the case for me last year in Moscow, I was completely off the pace in qualifying, I qualified tenth, I was struggling on the track and my car was completely broken at the end of race one, but I went on and had an eight second gap before I got a penalty (for the team being on the grid at the five minute signal).”