Audi drivers “in a good position” despite heavy rain forecast

Audi drivers Gilles Magnus and Santiago Urrutia remain confident about qualifying chances for the penultimate TCR Europe series round of the year despite the prospect of heavy rain affecting Saturday’s running.

Comtoyou Racing’s Magnus topped the times in the first 30-minute session of the weekend, while WRT’s Urrutia was two-tenths adrift in second.

Both Audis will be running with 0kg of compensation weight, giving Magnus and Urrutia the upper-hand heading into qualifying.

Magnus, who currently sits seventh in the TCR Europe standings with one win, told TouringCarTimes: “It feels good to be P1 after FP1. But tomorrow it will rain and it will be the first time I have driven the car properly in the rain.

“So even with the weight loss, we are not sure how the Audi will be in qualifying.

“I’ve maybe only done about 12 laps in total in the rain, so it’s very hard to say where we will be tomorrow. We could be on pole by five seconds, you never know, so it will be a challenge.”

Urrutia, fifth in the championship, also shared concerns over the unpredictable weather over the weekend, but remains optimistic that the weight loss on the Audi RS 3 LMS will still prove advantageous.

“It’s probably too early to say how things will go this weekend,” Urrutia told TouringCarTimes.

“The Hyundais never show what they have in practice, we have seen this the whole season.

“But definitely we are quick, we have no weight so that is going to help a lot. For us it was a good practice but we still need to improve a lot, especially as it is going to rain tomorrow.”

“When you have no weight in the dry, it’s a huge advantage, but when you have no weight in the wet, normally there is no advantage. So, it’s about getting used to how to drive in the wet, the change in the set-up between dry and wet, so it’ll be very difficult tomorrow.”

“But I’m not worried about it, we’re in a good position and if we are quick in FP2, we will be quick in qualifying as well.”