Ma Qing Hua’s two ‘scary’ starts caused by a clutch problem

Citroën’s weekend at the Slovakiaring wasn’t all perfect, after Ma Qing Hua’s C-Elysée failed to get away at the start for both races, with Nika Racing driver Néstor Girolami narrowly avoiding the Chinese driver at the start of race two.

“We had a clutch problem, we don’t know the details of it yet, but there was nothing I couldn’t have done,” said Ma to TouringCarTimes.

“During race one I came back to the pits to change something for race two. I did a practice start for race two and it had improved, but for the race start it came back again.”

“In race two I think I was comfortably looking for a win, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance.”

As the clutch issue triggered a false start in both races for Ma, even though he still fell to the back of the pack in both races, he was forced to serve a drive-through penalty in race two, but in lieu of being to serve one for the first race, he was given a reprimand instead.

Next weekend, the 27-year-old heads to Paul Ricard for the first time, where his Citroën team-mates have a great deal of testing experience .

“It’ll be my first time at the Paul Ricard circuit, but my team-mates have a lot of experience. First of all I want to have a good car with no issues, that’s the first target that we need to work to for now.”