James Thompson hails ‘encouraging’ start to the weekend

James Thompson is back behind the wheel of the Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1, starting his weekend at Marrakech, Morocco, with a positive top ten finish by closing the testing session in ninth, just behind Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani.

“It’s an encouraging start to the weekend,” said the Brit to TouringCarTimes. “We have a much better basis compared to Slovakia, and I am gaining more and more confidence with the car. It looks quite good, also because we did not use any new tyres and we are in the top ten, so not bad at all.”

When asked if the car feels good at the moment, Thompson revealed he has more performance to find as he is still 1.7s off the pace: “It’s not bad, but to feel really good you need to be one and a half second quicker. Honestly, though, I am much more confident than I was in Slovakia and I think that by improving the car here and there we can make sure we make more progress up the order.”

With the demands of the Marrakech street circuit so different compared to his sole experience with the Cruze in Slovakia, Thompson admits the bumpy nature of the track is an area he needs to work on: “Of course the track features different kinds of tarmac, and it is also very bumpy, so it’s quite different to anything else. Of course it’s new to everyone, but I need to adapt myself to the Cruze and vice versa. I am always in contact with (engineer) Marco (Calovolo) who is helping us, but we are struggling to share data at the moment as he is in Thruxton for the British Touring Car Championship. Nevertheless, hopefully it will be a good weekend. As usual, I will push hard.”

Thompson is in his second outing in the championship, with a best finish of eleventh in the main race at Slovakiaring.