Mikel Azcona: “I’ve no idea what happened”

Mikel Azcona admitted he was confused by the error that resulted in him missing out on the chance to go for pole in the final stage of qualifying for the Hungarian rounds of the World Touring Car Cup.

The Spaniard had been one of the pace-setters in practice at the wheel of his Zengő Motorsport-run Cupra León Competición TCR and qualified second on the grid for the opening race behind Esteban Guerrieri’s Honda.

Azcona then set the pace in Q2 and headed into the final part of the session as the first driver scheduled to set a time for his rivals to beat.

However, there was confusion when the Cupra failed to make it onto the track in the allotted time – leaving Azcona unable to set a time and in fifth place on the grid for the final race of the weekend as a result.

“We had 30 seconds of green light to get out and at the first moment the green light was on, we went to the track,” he said. “It’s impossible to only do 200m in 30 seconds so I honestly don’t know what happened and we have to check, as 15 metres before the lights [at pit exit], they went red.

“I don’t understand and we have to check but my qualifying is done and that’s the worst thing. I am quite happy to have been P1 in Q2 as I feel we are strong, and there are three races tomorrow so we just have to keep pushing.”

It would later be revealed that missing the pit exit was down to an error from the team in taking into account the time it would take to travel from the start of the pit lane – where the Zengő garage is position – down to the exit.

“We had good pace in Slovakia and the pace is better here,” Azcona said. “We are starting in a good position and we can fight for victory in race one and the position is okay for the other races. It is the home race for my team and I’m still super happy and will push for the podium positions.”