Vallelunga qualifying misunderstanding “not a big deal” for Mehdi Bennani

Mehdi Bennani looked a likely candidate to enter the FIA WTCR Q3 session at Vallelunga, but the Moroccan missed out on his last run due to a misunderstanding with Audi stable-mates Gilles Magnus and Tom Coronel.

After looking like they were scrapping over the same piece of tarmac, Comtoyou Audi team-mates Bennani and Magnus started the lap so close that a small mistake by the Belgian resulted in both aborting the lap along with Tom Coronel, who was also close to the duo.

The Moroccan believes that once he started the lap so close to his team-mate, his lap was doomed.

“We were so close to each other, and we were stuck because we had cars around us,” said Bennani to TouringCarTimes. “I started the lap about one metre from Magnus, he made a small mistake and obviously that caused a mess. That’s nothing special, actually, not a big deal, although I was improving.”

Bennani is confident he can have a good couple of races tomorrow, as he has faith in his Audi’s race pace.

“I think we have a good pace, so we can have a good couple of races. The goal is to fight and figure out how to overtake on this tricky track, and then we’ll see where we end up. For sure we are happy with the potential of the car, we are okay with the tyres, and I feel we have a much better race pace than qualifying.”