Photo: WTCR Media

James Thompson takes positives from difficult Marrakech race

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James Thompson finished his first race since he made his comeback to racing after 18 months. The Münnich Motorsport driver was involved in an incident at the first corner, but despite that he is happy with his weekend so far.

“Apart from the accident it was a good weekend for me,” said the Honda driver to TouringCarTimes. “I’ve got to be happy, having not driven for 18 months and being one and a half tenths off Esteban (Guerrieri)’s pace. I take the positives from my side, although obviously it would have been better for the team had we been a bit further up ahead fighting for the podium, but from my standpoint it’s great I showed I have no rustiness and hopefully in the future I can get a couple of good results for René and the boys.”

As for tomorrow, when the weekend practically starts over with another qualifying session and two more races, Thompson is grateful for having the opportunity to get more miles under his belt in the Honda Civic TCR, as well as trying to get used to the paddle shift gearbox.

“I hope we can learn from today. At this stage mileage is obviously paramount, we can try a few things in the car and see what suits me and what doesn’t during qualifying. I’m still struggling a bit with the gearbox to be honest, as I’m used to the sequential, but with the paddle shift it’s the electronics that decide when you change gears, so I happened to use the gearbox as if I were trying to downshift nine gears. I’m just not able to use it in a certain way, like I used to do. You can lose time and consistency like that.”

As for the number of races he will contest, the former British Touring Car Championship champion relies on team boss René Münnich’s decision.

“I’m relatively happy that at least I wasn’t a second off the pace from my team-mates, so hopefully we can continue like that. I hope to do as many races as possible, I was very happy when René called me and as long as he is happy with what I’m doing I’m glad to be able to drive. We’ll see what happens.”