Jean-Karl Vernay: “I don’t think we were hoping for a better weekend”

2017 TCR International Series champion Jean-Karl Vernay is delighted with his World Touring Car debut, after the Frenchman scored victory in Race 2 from second on the reversed grid in Marrakech, and leaves Morocco third in the championship behind touring car veterans Gabriele Tarquini and Thed Bjork.

Vernay had what he proclaimed as one of his best starts in a year in the new Team WRT-run Audi RS 3 LMS and launched ahead of Pepe Oriola’s pole-sitting Cupra TCR to take the lead, and then hold off local hero Mehdi Bennani in the SLR Volkswagen to take his first World Touring Car Cup win.

“I don’t think we were hoping for a better weekend than that. As soon as I arrived we were nearly always in the top five,” said Vernay to TouringCarTimes.

“We do need to work a lot more on the car as the gap to the Hyundais is quite huge. I hope the BoP gets better, but this is not my concern,” he added.

“There’s a great atmosphere in the team. I have a top gun next to me in Gordon (Shedden). We’re working well together, and we’re pushing each other really hard, and this is important for a team.”

With a number of cars running into brake problems over the weekend, Vernay admitted he was cautious, but that he really only had problems in the race that he won.

“I was worried about the brakes, so I tried to manage it as good as I was able to. What’s weird is that in the second race I had more issues than the third race, which was when I was in traffic so I had to often go wide to take some clean air. I just tried to be smart and not overheat the brakes.”