Pepe Oriola happy with positive weekend

Pepe Oriola won the first race of the day at Buriram, Thailand, and completed the good weekend with a podium spot in Race 2 after a long fight against Target Competition’s Loris Hezemans.

Talking about the first heat, the Craft-Bamboo Lukoil driver said: “Race 1 was very good, I was trying to stay with Gianni (Morbidelli) but he was just too fast. I had hoped that they would give him a drive through penalty because I saw he had had a jump start, but I don’t think it was completely his fault, because the 5 seconds sign came about 10 seconds before the lights went on. I am very happy with the 1-2-3, as Craft-Bamboo Lukoil are leading the Teams’ championship.”

On to the second race, the battle lasted all race long for Oriola, who also had to fight with Morbidelli before the WestCoast Racing driver retired: “I’m a little sad because I was faster than Loris (Hezemans), but he was defending hard and I couldn’t get past. We had a bit of contact, so at that point I thought I’d rather finish the race. I was told on the radio that if I passed the car in front I would have left Thailand leading the championship, so I tried to push as much as I could but to be honest I couldn’t have taken more risks than I already did. Nevertheless, overall it was a positive weekend.”

The Spaniard will be on maximum ballast come Macau, but he thinks it will not make things different: “To be honest, anything you predict for Macau can be wrong. Of course it will not make my life easier, but to be honest I think it will not make a huge difference, especially since Stefano will have to carry 20 kilos as well.”

Oriola is still second in the championship, but he reduced the gap to 2 points after Buriram.