John Filippi rues ‘not finding what I needed’ in latest TCR Europe round
John Filippi’s deficit to the top of the TCR Europe standings grew from 16 to 44 points at the Hungaroring, as he struggled in his Audi RS 3 LMS II.
The Comtoyou Racing driver was sixth fastest in qualifying of the drivers scoring TCR Europe points, but only 16th fastest overall and two seconds off the pace set by the TCR World Tour drivers at the top of the timesheet.
He then finished 14th in the two races, getting into the top 12 early on but lacking the pace to stay there and dropping back.
After the weekend’s action had finished he explained to TouringCarTimes that “we didn’t find a good dynamic” at the track, with notably all of Comtoyou’s Audis not matching the single-lap pace of the Hyundais and Lynk & Cos.
“FP1 was quite okay. After, we don’t count FP2 because it started off so wet. But in qualifying, my run one was quite okay and I didn’t improve in then run two so missing the Q2 and not getting a lot of information,” Filippi said, looking back.
“After, we go [searching for answers], it’s just I don’t find the pace, I don’t find the right things. We are a little bit different from what we are used to driving in the other tracks, and on this track we didn’t find what I needed at the end. I didn’t find what I was missing.”
It was a bump back down to earth for Filippi, who had ended the previous TCR Europe round at Spa-Francorchamps with overall victory against the TCR World Tour runners and then had a top-ten finish in the TCR Italian Festival at Vallelunga the week before heading to a hot Hungary.
“We saw many times with track temperature, like in Spa or some other races, [time and time] we’ve found is that it’s not so difficult [to get the car in the right window], it’s just our tyre pressure had some [camber] adjustment. But on this track, I think especially in sector two, we were struggling all the weekend. And we never found the key.”
Filippi remains second in the TCR Europe standings in a Comtoyou 1-2-3, and is 12th in the World Tour having contested all the rounds held so far. While he plans to do at least one TCR event outside of the European championship to help boost his World Rankings points, he is not thinking to make any further World Tour outings.
