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Alex Fontana targets racing in Europe after maiden win in CTCC

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Kia Racing driver Alex Fontana scored his first win in the China Touring Car Championship in the second race at Ningbo, leading from start-to-finish in difficult conditions in the Kia K3, finishing ahead of BAIC Senova’s Dan Lloyd and Volkswagen’s Rob Huff.

The Swiss driver has made the move to touring cars with his programme in China as the Kia team’s selected international driver, and has one weekend left of his allotted four in the championship to go.

After getting a drive-through penalty on Saturday’s race, the 25-year-old finished in a strategic 12th place which secured him pole position for the second 11-lap race on Sunday.

“It was quite difficult,” said Fontana to TouringCarTimes. “It’s a long time since I’ve driven in such difficult conditions. I’ve only had one session ever in the wet in a front-wheel drive car which was last year, but this was my first time in these kinds of conditions, and this is only my fifth weekend in touring cars, so I’m still learning.

“Being out in the lead wasn’t easy as I had to learn where I’d be able to put the car. There were so many yellow flag incidents and marshals on the track, I decided to drive safely as you never know if you might get a penalty, but then when I saw Rob (Huff) closing so fast, and then the team told me I can push, and then I was able to match Rob’s pace.”

The Swiss driver aims to be able to race in Europe next year, finding his feat in touring cars after many years racing in Formula 2, GP2 and more recently the Blancpain GT Series.

“It’s new for me racing in China, but I’m really enjoying touring cars,” he said. “I was a single-seater driver, and in the last few years I’ve been doing GTs, but recently I’ve been following TCR and I’ve found that this is one of the categories where the races are the most fun, so I hope I can soon start to race some touring cars in Europe as well.”