Pepe Oriola’s success ballast causing excessive tyre wear

Pepe Oriola struggled in the first race held earlier today at Estoril, Portugal. The Craft-Bamboo Lukoil driver managed to finish eighth despite pressure from behind from Race 2 pole-sitter Loris Hezemans and his Baporo Motorsport team-mate Francisco Mora.

“The car is just not going well,” admitted Oriola to TouringCarTimes. “The extra weight influences the balance and tyre wear, which is a disaster on a layout like the Estoril.”

The Spaniard says the 30 extra kilos he is carrying in his SEAT León are a much bigger penalty on this track compared to others: “These long corners are very hard on the tyres even for an unladen car, so it is affecting me more compared to, say, Bahrain. I started to feel the understeer as early as four or five laps into the race and it just faded lap by lap.”

Oriola says he will make setup changes, but the short repair time will not allow for any major modifications, and he will rely on his starting position to score a good result: “Of course we will make a few changes, but we can’t turn the car upside down in 15 minutes. All we can really do is hoping to take advantage of me starting third and then hope for the best.”

Oriola leads the championship equal on points with WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli, who won the first race of the day. The Spaniard is still ahead of the Italian due to his two wins, compared to the only victory scored by the Honda driver.