Frédéric Vervisch denies blocking tactics against Jean-Karl Vernay

Frédéric Vervisch had made a stunning debut by placing his Comtoyou Audi RS 3 LMS on the front row in qualifying, but a combination of factors prevented him from taking a podium.

The Belgian driver ended up fifth in his home race at Spa-Francorchamps. WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay accused him of blocking him to favour his race-winning team-mate Stefano Comini, which the Audi driver strongly denies.

“Absolutely not, I was just defending my position”, said Vervisch to TouringCarTimes when asked if he had blocked Vernay. “I already knew from watching the races on tv that they race hard in this series, and perhaps I defended a bit too aggressively on one occasion, but that was only once.”

Although he does not complain about Vernay’s behaviour, the Belgian is keen to point out that the Volkswagen driver started rubbing and pushing him while the pair were fighting for fourth place.

“I don’t want to complain, but he started pushing me. It’s just minor contact, and if he wants to complain he needs to be aware of this. My intention was not to block him, it was to defend my position from anyone who attacked, not especially him, I would have done the same with anyone. That’s my job and it is touring car racing, I even expected it to be worse coming from GTs, so it was fine. I hope it continues like that tomorrow.”

Vervisch went on to talk about his race. After a decent start, the Belgian never looked capable of keeping the pace of team-mate Comini, who eventually won the race. Having spent most of the race defending, he was able to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the Audi RS 3 LMS.

“The start was reasonable, but the Hondas were really quick, I couldn’t keep them behind. I felt I lacked a bit of pace and I had to defend a lot, but our car was very good in sectors one and three, which made my life easier when defending. In the second sector I was struggling and Vernay went through. It’s easy to make mistakes with these cars, you have to push but you also need to preserve the tyres, so it was difficult, but I’m learning and I finished the race.”

The result still leaves the Audi driver happy, as his team-mate has won the race and the car is capable of winning races. With a one-race experience under his belt, Vervisch is sure he can do better tomorrow.

“It’s good for the team that Stefano (Comini) won the race, it shows the potential of the car. I think it’s possible to do even better tomorrow, we will push as hard as we can and I know how the tyre degrades, which is quite a lot. We will adjust the setup to try and manage the tyres better, I finished the race and I ended up in a decent position, which makes me happy.”