Stefano Comini celebrates Spa pole, but fails to do Eau Rouge flat

Stefano Comini took pole position by a blink of an eye over Comtoyou team-mate Frédéric Vervisch. The Audi driver apologised for failing to do Eau Rouge flat, although he did try as he had promised.

“I apologise to everyone, but I couldn’t do it”, said the Swiss to TouringCarTimes. “I tried, but I saw the car was understeering, I lifted to load it at the front and started losing the rear. It was a bit of a scary moment, but I managed to hold it.”

The defending TCR International Series champion did not expect to be on pole position, and he believes a good lap right at the limit of his Audi RS 3 LMS handed him the result. Comini was also the first to get out of the queue of slow cars as everyone looked for a slipstream, a move which he believes helped him.

“I didn’t expect to be on pole position”, admitted the Swiss. “I did an incredible lap at my first real attempt, after which I had Benjamin Lessennes behind and I didn’t want to give him a slipstream. It was quite messy out there in the first two laps, after which I thought I’d just go and do my own lap, as I didn’t want to get stuck behind someone and lose the chance to do my lap. I got heat in my tyres, I balanced the car and I could trust it straight away, I pushed in the first lap and made the difference. With my driving style the tyre has a dramatic drop in performance, so I knew I only had one lap.”

As for today’s race, the Audi driver expects no help from his new team-mate Vervisch. The drivers are only expected to treat each other in a fair way, but they are free to race, which Comini fully understands.

“The strategy for today is to have a good start and stay in front. I don’t think he is going to protect me, he is here to do his own race. It’s also his home track and it’s fair that a driver has to think about himself first. Of course we need to get Audi and Comtoyou a win, the rest matters less.”