Jenson Brickley will be hoping it's third time lucky this weekend at Circuit Paul Ricard, having missed out on a maiden victory in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour three weeks ago at Valencia when his turbo failed while comfortably leading the race.
The TCR Europe champion has now led two races but is yet to finish on the podium. While he was muscled out of the lead by Ma Qing Hua on his Misano debut, the ALM Motorsport driver had things completely under control in Valencia’s Race 2 until his Honda’s turbo failed just four laps from the end, effectively gifting the victory to Geely Cyan Racing’s Santiago Urrutia.
Brickley had started third but was up into the lead by the first corner when his teammate Sten Dorian Piirimägi was pushed off the track by the Hyundai of Julien Briché.
"After what happened at Turn 1, I was a little bit lucky, but I think we probably had the pace over them anyway,"said Brickley. "We made a good break at the start, and then there was an early safety car. I made a bit of a poor safety car restart; I’m usually pretty good at them, but it was the first time I'd done one in this car and the way I normally do them doesn’t work. With the CUPRA, you put your foot to the floor, and it goes, while there’s a bit of lag in the Honda and Santi nearly got me.
It was then nearly a perfect race. I had the fastest car throughout and I built another two-second gap. There was no warning, I just came out of the last corner, and it just died. Then the driveshaft went in the third race. It couldn’t have gone much worse than it did. I just need to start getting the car across the line."
Picture: WSC/Fastclick-AvensImages
