Photo: WTCC Media

Hugo Valente says he was going to leave Lada anyway

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Hugo Valente said he’d already planned to leave Lada at the end of this season, and that the WTCC race in Qatar is likely be his last, with no professional drives available to the Frenchman.

Valente showed strong pace in free practice at the Losail circuit before suspension failure in qualifying resigned him to 12th on the grid. The unlucky Frenchman was then an innocent party in the incident between Citroën’s José María López and Honda’s Tiago Monteiro on the first lap of the first race, and then broke his suspension running wide at Turn 5 at the start of the second race.

The Lada factory driver has been left without a drive after the team announced they’d pull out of the championship at the end of this season, but he said this wouldn’t have made a difference in his case, even though both his team-mates Nicky Catsburg and Gabriele Tarquini had agreed to continue racing for the manufacturer next year.

“I’d already decided to leave the team as I’m not too happy about the way things work here,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes. “Nicky and Gabriele would go testing and I wouldn’t even know until later on. Anything the team want to try out, they’d try on my car first and I’d lose a whole session if it didn’t work.

“Also, the ways things work here is different. I’ve come from Campos Racing, which is a Spanish team and they’re very passionate, while at Lada it’s very different. For example, (team principal) Viktor (Shapovalov) will go off for a three-hour bike run before qualifying, and I don’t see (Honda team principal Alessandro) Mariani doing that.”

The 24-year-old also said he was not looking at other opportunities at present, either in or outside of the WTCC, with priorities in his life changing after the birth of his daughter in September.

“I’m lucky to have a father who’s successful and supports (my racing career), but I’m nearly 25, and I need to start to work for my own money. There are no drives here next year, and if Class One happens, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, all those guys have all their own drivers already and there won’t be any room for me. I don’t want to pay to race, so I think this will be my last race.”