Stefano Comini praises Leopard Racing’s set-up improvements

Stefano Comini took two podiums in today’s races at Estoril, Portugal. The 2015 Champion finished third in the first heat and scored a precious second place in Race 2 behind Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s James Nash, climbing up to fifth in the championship.

“We are making good progress, hopefully next time we will improve by one more place!,” said the Leopard Racing driver. “I don’t know what happened at the start, I think I never was so quick off the line. I was so happy to be almost in the lead I missed the braking point. After that Nash overtook me again, and I was side by side with Jean-Karl (Vernay). I hate fighting with my team-mate, but he missed the braking point at Turn 4 and went wide, so I overtook him.”

After he conquered his second place, Comini took good care of his tyres and took the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR to the flag in second, thus equalling team-mate Jean-Karl Vernay’s result in Race 1: “At that point Nash was too far to catch, and I didn’t want to kill my tyres. My strategy was to keep the tyres safe and push in the last five laps to close the gap, but Nash was quite consistent all race long and it was impossible to catch him.”

Reflecting on the stunning improvements made by the team on the Golf, the Swiss admits the 30-kg weight-break had an effect, but improvements on the set-up were crucial: “It’s not just about the ballast, we also did a fantastic job with the setup, we worked a lot. Of course the Balance of Performance is helping a lot, I think we need to work on the Golf every time we go out on track. The good thing is that we now have a good basic set-up for Spa-Francorchamps.”

When asked if he is targeting the title after a difficult weekend in Bahrain, the Leopard Racing driver was clear: “I think about winning the championship all the time. I am here to defend my crown, it is difficult to do it with a weekend like Bahrain, but Leopard Racing and I want to win this championship. We have more work to do than the others, but we will fight every time to try to bag more and more points.”

Comini’s double podium elevates him to fifth in the championship, 29 points shy of leader Gianni Morbidelli.