Santiago Urrutia: “We could have done more this weekend”

Geely driver Santiago Urrutia is the championship leader after the fourth round of the 2026 TCR World Tour at Vila Real, but he feels he could have achieved better results at the Portuguese street track.

The Uruguayan scored a podium in the first race and finished fourth in the second, with a total of 47 points scored in the weekend.

“I think it was a weekend where we could have done more,” Urrutia told TouringCarTimes. “I don’t think the strategy worked for me in qualifying, and finishing fourth meant I lost a lot of points, looking back on the weekend as a whole.

“Third and fourth in the end, in the second race, starting seventh, fourth place was good. I’d hoped for a bit more from the weekend, just a tiny bit more, but the series is very competitive.”

Urrutia added that the Hyundai cars had been particularly strong across the weekend, with Mikel Azcona bagging pole and Norbert Michelisz scoring the race two win.

“Hyundai are very quick; Mikel took pole with 40 kilos, but he made a mistake at the start, which is why Yann beat him,” Urrutia added.

“As for us, we’ve been doing what we can with the new car, improving weekend by weekend, so I hope now, during this break before Asia, to work well with the team and see where we can make a difference and keep improving,” Urrutia said.

“I’m happy, to be honest, because I’ve held onto the championship lead, but I’m not entirely happy because I think I could have done a bit more.”

Urrutia hopes the team will support him in the championship fight, having reach the half way point of the season in the lead.

“I hope to have the team’s support; I hope to have that support so I can keep picking up points, and, well, to be able to count on them for the rest of the year and pick up the important championship points, and, well, to see how it goes,” the Uruguayan added.

“Motorsport in Asia is very different from what we’re used to in Europe, so we’ll have to see how our car performs; the tracks are very different, there are lots of things that are different, so we need to get everything sorted to have a good weekend,” he said.

Urrutia leads the drivers’ championship with 230 points, 10 ahead of Azcona and 34 clear of Michelisz.