Hugo Valente second for the second race in a row in Germany

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente continues his giant killing form in the WTCC, taking the fight to Citroën in the small privateer Spanish-run Chevrolet RML Cruze. Valente qualified in second position at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, having achieved the same feat two weeks ago in Hungary, and says that pole was certainly a possibility.

“Campos and RML have done a great job since Argentina to improve the car and bring some great updates,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes after qualifying. “I think we still have some work to do in terms of the races, but in qualifying you can consider that we’re now here. Of course we’re 60kg lighter, and that might change after the next race.”

“(But) I’m happy to break through the Citroëns, and to be far ahead of the other Chevrolet guys as well, I think that’s important for my objectives for this season and next year,” added the top independent driver in qualifying.

López took his tenth career pole and his third of the season today, with Citroën having taken pole at every race since Shanghai last year, their seventh in a row, but the young French driver believes that breaking that streak was almost possible.

“I strongly believe that we could get pole today,” added Valente. “I had a good lap in free practice 2 in which I made a lot of mistakes on. I know it’s impossible not to do a lap around here without any mistakes on one lap, but I was just six-tenths off so I could have been P1 in FP2, but now in qualifying I had too much oversteer as the track temperature was a lot lower than this afternoon.”