Josh Files sets first flying laps during qualifying at Macau

Campos Racing’s Josh Files qualified 16th for his first appearance at the Guia Race of Macau, despite setting no complete laps in either of the two free practice sessions on Thursday or Friday after a crash at Mandarin.

The 24-year-old 2013 Renault Clio Eurocup champion missed all running ahead of qualifying, but rescued his weekend after his Opel Astra OPC was fixed overnight by the team, as they salvaged parts from team-mate Dan Wells’ car, which had suffered a terminal engine failure in Free Practice 2.

“I think they’ve made one car out of two. I’m not quite sure,” explained Files to TouringCarTimes.

“We had two laps before the red flag (in Q1). I did a 2:43 on the second lap, which was OK. There’s a lot more in the car, but a lot more in me as well to be honest, but then after the red flag we had a brake issue, as in, they were gone!”

“I made sure I braked quite early for Lisboa as I felt the pedal was going long, and then just brought it around.”

Starting 16th on the grid, after getting the call up just under a week ago, Files has liberal expectations of race day.

“We’ll just give it a go tomorrow. I’ve still only done about four flying laps here in total…and the car isn’t the fastest in a straight line, so it might be more a case of defending rather than overtaking.”