Mikel Azcona: “We are suffering a lot with the engine”

BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse driver Mikel Azcona did not have the weekend he hoped for during his home round of the FIA TCR World Tour in Valencia, with the Spaniard stating that he was struggling with engine performance issues.

“This weekend it was very difficult fighting against the rest,” Azcona told TouringCarTimes.

“In Free Practice it seemed we had good performance, a good balance with the car, also being fastest in the FP1. Maybe the temperatures weren’t so high as on Saturday and Sunday.

“On Saturday we had a good feeling and balance in the Q1, but in Q2 we don’t really know what happened, but we put new tyres without touching the car, and the car had a very strong balance. It is true that we were suffering with the engine, but the balance was good.”

Azcona dropped from being fastest in Q1 of qualifying with 1:39.830 to finish eighth in Q2 with 1:40.613.

“So, we put new tyres and they were eight-tenths slower. I made no mistakes, and it was a constant loss throughout the lap at every corner,” said Azcona.

“We thought it could be the tyres, so we put some new ones on and the same thing happened.

“We understand that there was a problem with the tyre compound and that it didn’t perform as other times, we qualified in eighth place and, together with the penalty I had from Mexico, I started the first race in P14.”

The Hyundai driver had hoped to improve in Race 1, but an incident in the opening lap ruined his chances.

“The target for the first race was getting into P10, so we could fight for the victory in Race 2 from the reverse pole position. The best thing of the weekend have been the starts, always gaining positions,” said Azcona.

“Unfortunately, in the first race, I had a broken intercooler after a collision with Ignacio Montenegro (Honda) and all the incidents in the opening lap. So I had to come into the pits to repair it and I lost the race. Finishing in tenth then was the only thing that could have saved our weekend, but that collision killed our chances.”

This weekend became, just as in Mexico, about damage limitation for Azcona who sits in 13th place overall after Valencia.

“Race 2 was the most positive of the weekend. There were more incidents because all the inverted grid, but there were overtaking opportunities, and starting P16 we had good balance and pace, reaching P7 and I am happy for it,” said Azcona.

“For Race 3 I was in a bad starting position so we opted for trying a different setup, to see if we could find something else, but it didn’t work and I suffered a lot, so could only gain two positions.”

The Hyundai driver couldn’t hide his concern about the team’s chances for the next race at Monza.

“We scored positive points but, at an engine level, compared to the rest we have an important performance loss and, looking now to Monza, it concerns me because the performance is not good,” said Azcona.