Jenson Brickley: “I could have pushed further”

ALM Motorsport driver Jenson Brickley (Honda) qualified in eighth place for the Race 1 grid in Vila Real, stating that he could have pushed further.

“This place is crazy, I’ve never experienced anything about this track,” said Brickley, who races at the street track for the first time, to TouringCarTimes.

“You go to see the track and think ‘Ok, ‘ok, there’s room’. Then, you get on the car and you go and faster and faster, the walls get tighter and tighter… But well, I’ve been improved in every session.”

The Briton had more speed in him, but had to keep the team’s strategy.

“For me, personally, it’s a shame to not have finished higher, there was more in me and more in the car,” said Brickley.

“We were aiming for the P10 (reverse grid pole position) and we did the lap time that we thought was going to be the P10 time, but it was too fast.”

The Honda driver believes he can still achieve a good result from eighth on the grid.

“It’s a shame because now we’re P8, but I think it’s still a question of a good start and race from there,” said Brickley.

Brickley will also be facing the two opportunities with the joker laps and has prepared himself for the challenge.

“It’s going to be tough, I think it’s not something you can plan ahead, but rather it’s in the moment, so if there’s a car holding you up, you need to go then again, if he stays behind, you don’t want to go too far back because you get held up with slow people again,” said Brickley.

“So I think it’s going to come into play a lot and I think the strategy is going to probably gain some places, maybe one or two overtakes in race one.

“I think here starts are super important and I know I have the pace to be higher than where I am in qualified, so I think we should have a good race base and maye get a podium in Race 2.”