“We’re hoping for some luck,” says title contender Julien Briché

JSB Compétition’s Julien Briché says he must keep his head down and “stay away from incidents” if he is to keep his TCR Europe series title hopes alive at Monza this weekend.

The Frenchman is currently 48 points behind Josh Files in the standings, and anticipates a difficult weekend ahead of him following Friday’s free practice sessions.

“Practice has been a bit complicated for us today, especially as we can see who is in front of us. It seems like this weekend will be quite hard already,” Briché told TouringCarTimes.

“We’ll see what tomorrow brings, I think that if we do everything right we have a good chance of getting into Q2 with a bit of difficulty. That’s really the maximum for us at the moment.”

Practice has been dominated by the Hyundai i30 N TCR, particularly those from Target Competition – Files’ team – with a downbeat Briché stating that he needs luck to go his way come the races.

“What we’re hoping for is some luck with the reversed grid on Sunday, it’ll be hard for sure.

“Everyone in the paddock I think is a little bit surprised by the speed of the Hyundais this weekend. But there you go, it’s like that.

“We just need to work hard tomorrow and do a good job. We have to be clever in the race and not get involved in any incidents, that’s the way we stay in the hunt for the championship.”