Esteban Guerrieri: “Something went wrong with the start system”

Esteban Guerrieri’s hopes to win the FIA TCR World Tour opener in Mexico went up in smoke right at the start as the GOAT Racing Honda driver bogged down, dropping him down to the back of the field.

“The altitude that we are at meant I had a little bit of high temperature and I had no power basically,” said Guerrieri.

“This together with the fact something went wrong with the start system, because the red light came on at the same time as the five-second board, meant I had no time to preload. If we knew that we wouldn’t have had the five seconds, I could have changed my start strategy.”

The Argentinian driver then performed a strong recovery drive from 15th place to finish fourth behind the leading Cyan Racing trio.

“I was lucky not to stall the engine. But to come back from P15 to fourth was a good recovery,” said Guerrieri.

“I’m looking at the positives, but of course if you start first you hope to finish first, though I don’t think I had the pace to fight with Ehrlacher today. He looked quick and we were not spot on with the set-up, so we should hopefully be better tomorrow.”

The Honda driver will line up in seventh place on the reversed grid for Race 2 at 11:30 local time/19:30 CEST.