Gilles Magnus: “Pole still possible without the tow”

Comtoyou Racing’s Gilles Magnus believes a strong qualifying performance in the TCR Europe series finale is still possible “even without the tow” at Monza.

Magnus was the best of the Audi RS 3 LMS drivers in the opening practice session, placing seventh in his Comtoyou Racing car.

Hyundai dominated the session, with eight of its cars inside the top ten, with teams’ champions Target Competition particularly strong.

All five Target cars finished inside the top six, with the team experimenting with the tow on Monza’s long straights. However Magnus, who’s Audi is better suited to the circuit’s characteristics, says focusing on the tow come qualifying could pose more problems than solutions.

“I don’t think we are going to focus on giving each other a tow in qualifying because it can be quite a dangerous tactic. For them [Target Competition], it’s easier if you have four other cars to tow with, we just have two [with team-mate Sami Taoufik],” said Magnus to TouringCarTimes.

“And then you can also focus too much on the tow and you f**k yourselves because you have not got a clean lap. The Audi is quick on the straights and on new tyres over one lap, so I think even without the tow it is possible to be on pole.”

Magnus admitted that while he had not run on new tyres during the first session, he found the initial deficit to the Hyundais as “strange”.

“[I’m] a little surprised, although to be honest, nothing really surprises me with the Hyundais this year. They have shown that they can be at 60kg and still fast,” Magnus added.

“The pace in FP1 was something I didn’t really expect though. Even though they were giving each other a tow and we were on used tyres, it’s a bit strange.

“But let’s see what happens in FP2 and in qualifying. Normally the Audi is really good on one-lap pace, so we just need to concentrate on ourselves at the moment. We haven’t done any qualifying runs either, so it’s difficult to tell where we are.”