“Incidents ahead of us the key to good Race 1,” says Julien Briché after tricky qualifying

JSB Compétition’s Julien Briché says he will need to rely on “incidents ahead of us” if he is to make significant progress in the opening TCR Europe series race of the season at Paul Ricard.

The Peugeot driver, who finished runner-up in the standings to Josh Files last year, qualified eleventh for both races this weekend, after struggling for the optimum set-up on his 308TCR throughout practice.

Despite the Peugeot’s better straight-line speed down the long Mistral Straight, Briché was left to lament the final sector of the lap, where he reckons he was losing the most amount of time.

“It’s been a difficult weekend for us so far but I keep my fingers crossed for some positives later on today,” Briché told TouringCarTimes.

“We’re disappointed of course, but we need to understand what went wrong and how we’re going to improve for the races. We struggled a bit with the management of the tyres, it wasn’t a good qualifying session for me today.

“I lost a lot of time in the final sector of the lap, we’re obviously fast in a straight line but we are missing something in the last part.”

Briché is hopeful that he can make some progress in the race, particularly at the start where the Frenchman believes there is a strong possibility of incidents in front.

“For the race, I’m hoping to make the most of some action at the start, that’s where a lot of incidents can happen and that might be our best chance to score some points today,” said Briché.

“We have to be honest and rely on things happening in front of us.

“The most important thing for us to focus on is scoring points, it’s a long season so we don’t need to take too many [unnecessary] risks in the first race of the season.”