Jean-Karl Vernay says “aggressive qualifying” crucial to championship chances

Team WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay says he needs to be “aggressive” in tomorrow’s TCR Europe series qualifying session if he is to stand a realistic chance of usurping championship leader Mikel Azcona for the title.

Defending TCR International Series champion Vernay finished in the top five in each of today’s free practice sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, despite his Audi RS 3 LMS being the heaviest car on the grid.

Vernay, who scored a double victory last time out at Monza, currently lies 19 points behind Azcona, with 25 points given for a race win. The Frenchman believes he needs Azcona to suffer misfortune if he is to snatch the title.

“We’re in the game, we just need to be there in case something happens because I cannot see Azcona behind us in qualifying,” Vernay told TouringCarTimes.

“You can see his pace, he is quick, which is pretty normal because he is leading the championship by 19 points and he is 50kg lighter. For the suspense of the championship, I’m not sure I am that happy about it, but it is what it is. The only thing we can do is to try and stay in the fight and if something happens, we need to be there.

“We need to be there with scoring big points.”

Vernay bemoaned the difficulties in setting up the car to accommodate for the increase in compensation weight ahead of the weekend and feels it it is an area upon which his Audi RS 3 LMS can improve next year.

As for this weekend though, the Frenchman is aiming to be in the mix at the front, even if it means he is behind main title rival Azcona on the grid.

“If we can do a top five, that would be great because then at least we can score some points,” Vernay added.

“The best would be to be ahead but again, I don’t see any possibility. The main problem with our car is the weight, as soon as we have weight, the car doesn’t react to changes. You can change everything on the car but it doesn’t make it any better and it’s a struggle to be quick. It’s something we’re working on because we’re going to carry that in the WTCR.

“We’re going to try to be aggressive in qualifying and then try to find some way to not have so much tyre degradation, but the track is quite abrasive and long, and we have a lot of weight. It’s not good for the brakes or anything, but we have some clever people in the team so I hope they will find the magic setup.”

Race one is scheduled to start tomorrow at 17:30 CEST, with race two scheduled to take place the following day at 15:55 CEST.