Aurélien Comte among three drivers to start from back following engine change

DG Sport Compétition Peugeot driver Aurélien Comte will start the first TCR Europe series race at Barcelona from the back of the grid following a post-qualifying engine change.

Comte initially qualified 18th in the wet-dry session, but was forced into an engine change following issues in practice.

“A very difficult quali for me, we knew already from yesterday that we had problems with the engine. We tried to find the solution since the start of the weekend, and even from the previous weekend but it didn’t work,” Comte told TouringCarTimes.

“We tried to avoid changing the engine and getting a penalty but now we realised that we really needed to change it which is a shame.

“That’s what the team is doing just now so it’s going to be a challenging weekend now.”

Comte was especially frustrated given the weight break the Peugeots received in the latest changes to the compensation weight, which gave the 308TCRs 30kg ahead of the weekend.

“I’ll start from the back now. We don’t know what the issue was, we just lost a lot of power. It’s the first time this has happened to us so we really aren’t sure.

“We knew that Barcelona and Monza were probably the best circuits for us with the compensation weight in our favour. Unfortunately now, it’s going to be very tough.”

With Race 1 likely to be wet, the Frenchman is now focussing his attention on the season-finale at Monza next month.

“We’ll try to work out way up the field, anything can happen in the races. There could be a safety car, red flag, who knows? We hope things will work out but in any case, we will focus on Monza now.

“This is effectively a test for us as for the moment, we don’t have much chance.”

WestCoast Racing’s Olli Kangas and M1RA’s Zsolt Szabo will also start from the rear of the field for Race 1, having changed their engines after second practice.

Kangas had qualified 23rd and Zsabo 19th in their Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR and Hyundai i30 N TCR respectively.