Mehdi Bennani happy with Yokohama Trophy win
Mehdi Bennani scored a fourth position outright in race one, also winning the Yokohama Trophy in the process, coming second in the independents’ category in the second heat despite having passed eventual winner Tom Chilton. Unfortunately for him, the Sébastien Loeb Racing driver overtook the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze a lap before the race was red flagged, which meant his effort proved useless.
“We scored a good win for the Yokohama Trophy, I am now seven points behind Norbert Michelisz, so that’s a massive improvement compared to yesterday,” said the Moroccan to TouringCarTimes. “Unfortunately race 2 was a bit too short.”
Bennani also talked about the incident with Yvan Muller at the start of the second race, which sent him to the back of the pack: “It was a shame because we could have fought for victory as I was close to the Hondas, but all in all I had a clean race basically starting from the back. I also overtook some drivers and it was a nice race.”
The Moroccan is now looking forward to Qatar after making up for 18 points from Yokohama Trophy rival Norbert Michelisz: “It is a shame because the red flag meant we went one lap back, and during that lap I had overtaken Tom (Chilton). Hopefully, being just two points, it will not change a great deal in my fight. At least I am now in a position to fight for the Yokohama Trophy title, so I will get ready for a nice fight in Qatar.”
Bennani praised his team for the job done so far this year: “The team worked really well to give me a great car and also a lot of information to improve myself, so I want to thank Sébastien Loeb Racing for their work.”
