José María López enjoying the fight on two fronts with Honda

Citroën Racing’s José María López says it feels good to be fighting with another manufacturer after Honda ran Citroën close during the first weekend of the season in France, but also expects the fight to drop off once their rivals start accumulating compensation weight from the Hungaroring.

The reigning champion has a slender four-point lead over Honda’s Tiago Monteiro leaving Paul Ricard, the smallest margin he’s held ever since the Argentinian joined the championship full-time, and says it’s good to be experiencing the fight from other manufacturers as well as from within Citroën.

“It feels nice (to be having a fight from outside the team),” said López to TouringCarTimes. “We as a team, of course we want to win, but it’s also nice to win with tough competition, it’s good for us, them and the championship.

“Our experience and calculations showed they were going to be very strong,” he added. “(We knew) they were coming. We tested with them in Vallelunga, they’ve changed the line-up of the team, they are really strong, and there’s competition between them which has helped the team. Last year (in Paul Ricard) they were six to eight tenths off the pace, and the kilo difference was 20 or 40, this year it’s 80.

“We’ve also pushed hard…we did a big effort in winter testing and we’re still competitive. It was a bit of a surprise (to be on top) in qualifying, but it’s also a bit different, as with new tyres the extra grip is there so you can manage (the weight) and then in the race when the grip was going away it was a bit more difficult.”