Mikel Azcona and Junesung Park are both happy with their pace in practice on Friday, especially at Hyundai’s home circuit, but both expect it’s possible to find their rivals have more pace available come the morning’s qualifying session.
Azcona set a best time of 1:40.763 in Free Practice 2, just over a tenth of a second ahead of the rival Hyundai Elantra of Junesung Park, while Park had led the first session ahead of Azcona’s BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse teammate Norbert Michelisz.
“Yes, it’s always good to start leading practice before qualifying, but it’s only practice,” said Azcona. “We just nailed the lap with the new tyres. The feeling was good, I was happy with the car balance, I think I can still improve tomorrow as I made some mistakes in sector two, so I feel confident before qualifying.
“Hyundai is in front here in Korea. Park also knows the track very well, and we’ve tried to be as fast as we can in the short time before qualifying. We don’t really know how much Geely are pushing, so tomorrow we’ll see. All I know is I nailed the lap on new tyres, so maybe I have one more tenth I can get out of the car.”
Park, back for the second year in a row here with South Korean team Solite Indigo Racing, was also happy with his performance, but has more casual expectations of his performance in qualifying.
"I’m very happy, but the important thing is tomorrow’s qualifying,” said Park. “Everybody will do their best, I think I can get a little bit more speed, but I think that BRC and Geely will be very fast tomorrow. I’d be happy if I got to P5 in qualifying.”
Photo: WSC/Paddocker
