Dutch Lada pair delighted with strong qualifying results in Slovakia

Nicky Catsburg and Jaap van Lagen put their Lada Vesta WTCCs in the top ten at the Slovakiaring, with Catsburg breaking into the top five shootout on his second race weekend in the World Touring Car Championship, while van Lagen qualified a strategic tenth and in doing so secures pole position for race two.

“Moscow was pretty tough and I think I got a little bit lucky by getting P9 and therefore P2 for race two,” said Catsburg to TouringCarTimes, referring to the reverse grid. “I was lacking some race pace, so I think it looked a bit better than it actually was, but I was really looking forward to this weekend as this circuit is slightly easier with this car. I was surprised in Q1 and Q2, I was really surprised with my lap times. Q3 was going really well but I made a mistake in sector two and that was basically over, but I must say I’m very happy with today and I’m enjoying it more and more, the more I drive it, the better it becomes.”

Van Lagen made a mistake on his run in Q2 and had to settle for the second best strategy, that of aiming for the reversed grid pole position by setting the tenth fastest time, which he did so, and will start the second race tomorrow ahead of Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini and ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton, and hopes to be able to convert pole intothe first race win for the new Lada Vesta tomorrow.

“I’ve concentrated on race distance in free practice so I have a good car for the race,” said van Lagen to TouringCarTimes. “(Overtaking here is really difficult) and the track is really hard for the tyres.

“I practiced some starts here yesterday and I did two really good starts, so hopefully I can keep the position into the first corner. In race one, of course I won’t take any risks as if I have any damage on the car that’s not good for the second race, so I’ll just try to take some points and that’s it.”