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Pepe Oriola hopes to complete the season after leaping to fourth in the standings

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Campos Racing’s Pepe Oriola had a steady weekend at Wuhan, and the Cupra TCR driver has emerged an unlikely fourth in the drivers’ standings heading to the final two rounds of the season, while Wuhan was set to be his last race of the year.

The Spaniard entered the season with only a partial budget, and the China double-header was an extension on his original race programme, but now Oriola hopes the team’s sponsors can now find additional support to enable him to complete the season.

“Being fourth in the championship and being the best of the Volkswagen Group, I think it’ll be really weird if I’m not there, so I hope they’re going to sort it out,” said Oriola to TouringCarTimes.

“It’s a dream come true to be here at this point of the season, considering how we started the year with no testing, to be head of teams like Sébastien Loeb Racing, ALL-INKL and mixing it with the Hyundais.

“I’m also learning a lot and showing that I’m more mature as a racer. In Race 3, I could see (Nathanael) Berthon was faster, but my aim was the points so I let him through, as I’m racing for a championship and not a single result.

“This is something in the past I may have been a bit aggressive and fought for it a bit too much, but my engineer and I we’ve done a lot of good work on strategy as well.

“I don’t think we’ll be carrying much weight to Suzuka as Ningbo wasn’t too good for us, and here there’s no other Cupra really close to me, so if I stay in this position heading into Macau, and can be in a position to fight for the top five in the championship, it’ll be amazing.”