Jean-Karl Vernay: rivals are holding back

Jean-Karl Vernay refuses to draw any conclusions based on his chart-topping pace in Thursday’s official World Touring Car Cup test at Zolder, saying his rivals are “not showing their full potential”.

Vernay set the exact same lap time as countryman Nathanaël Berthon to co-lead the timesheets in the only official WTCR pre-season test, but is not getting carried away by the apparent promise shown from the small Team Mulsanne Alfa Romeo operation amid paddock speculation that teams are sandbagging.

“We finished first today and we can’t say it was bad as we are P1,” said the experienced Frenchman to TouringCarTimes. “[But] it’s just a test, not a proper race weekend. I think the others are not showing their full potential. We are happy with what we did, we have some improvements to do on the car, but I think we found some good stuff.”

With running now moving away from testing and into the formal part of the actual race weekend, beginning on Friday with the first Free Practice session, Vernay is expecting a lot of work ahead to try and stay on top.

“We have to continue working tomorrow morning especially with some spare time about the plan for FP1 and FP2 to be super productive. We did a good job, it’s good to be at the front for the confidence so it’s a good starting point and I’m quite happy, but it would be more important to be at the same point on Saturday for qualifying.”