Pepe Oriola frustrated with Macau traffic in Free Practice 1

Craft-Bamboo Lukoil Racing’s Pepe Oriola was third fastest in the first free practice session in Macau, one of the few drivers taking part this weekend with previous experience of the Guia circuit, but believes he could have set a better lap time.

“The session was good, but we couldn’t show our pace,” said the championship contender. “I’m a little bit frustrated because there are some slow drivers who don’t watch their mirrors and I was blocked two or three times when I was on a fast lap. Hopefully I can get some clean laps in FP2 tomorrow to show my real pace.”

Despite these problems, the Spaniard is happy he stayed in front of title rival Stefano Comini.

“I am quite far behind (Rob) Huff, but my race is with Comini and I’m ahead of him so I’m happy. I think Qualifying will be really important. We’ve seen all year how hard these cars are to overtake and here there are only two or three places to overtake. Qualifying will be early in the morning, so the track will be dirty and quite slippery and so getting heat into the tyres may be quite difficult. As long as I am in front of Comini, I know I can win.”

Oriola sits just two points behind his Target Competition rival, with five points up for grabs in qualifying meaning he could be back in the points lead before race day.