Mat’o Homola blasts readiness of his Chevrolet Cruze for Slovakia

Slovakian Mat’o Homola’s World Touring Car Championship debut is not going to plan after persistent issues with the team’s Chevrolet Cruze, with the 20-year-old expressing disappointment with the race-readiness of the car.

A braking issue in the second free practice session today meant Homola was unable to set many laps during the session, which following from a problematic test yesterday which was used to mainly run in the newly fitted old specification RML engine.

The car in which Homola is racing is the Chevrolet Cruze TC1 which was last raced by Pepe Oriola at Macau last year. The same car had taken Dusan Borkovic to second place at Suzuka the race weekend before Oriola damaged the car twice during practice and qualifying and was forced to withdraw from the race.

“Honestly I’m disappointed with the Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 from Campos Racing because for the second day the car is completely not usable and not ready to race,” said Homola. “We found out that the car has some issues all of the time, which the Campos Racing team did not solve, so we are struggling both in pits and on the track. I didn’t do one proper lap time, because the brakes were getting stuck from time to time, o I had to go to (the pit) boxes, where the brakes got stuck so much that the car blocked the whole pit lane.”

Homola ended the session in 19th and last, with qualifying next up. In the supporting European Touring Car Cup, Homola has been in the top two in every session so far with the SEAT León Cup Racer, with qualifying taking place straight after WTCC qualifying.