Esteban Guerrieri – winner
“It was a very nice race. Even though there was no safety car, it was tough in these conditions, and we had to manage the tyres. On the last laps my front tyres were gone. At the start I chose around the outside into T1 with Comte, which meant T2 was good for us as the inside was quite a mess. After that, Michel (Jourdain) let me by and then I managed to overtake Comte with a very clean move. After that I just kept the pace. On the last five laps one of my front tyre started to vibrate and I thought it might explode. I had no braking efficiency on the final lap, and if there had been one more lap I would not have won because Yann would have overtaken me…”
Yann Ehrlacher - second
“Well done to all the guys next to me, and to Michel (Jourdain) as well as I had some time on track with him, and I remember watching him on TV when he was racing with Yvan (Muller) back in the day, so it was a great pleasure to be racing with him on track.
My approach was the same as yesterday, the pace paid off and it was the case today. We prepped a lot this winter to come back after a complicated season last year, and so far it’s going well. My teammates let me by as they had a bit less pace than me. We were one lap short of getting past Esteban, but we’ll see what we can do in Race 3.”
Aurélien Comte - third
“I’m very happy with the results as it’s the first time for the team in the World Tour in the new CUPRA. The goal was to take some good points and finish the race and we made it.
I tried to manage my tyres, as I knew at the end it’d be difficult, so for me they were working well.”
Michel Jourdain Jr. - best placed Mexican driver
“I’m very happy, we found we made a little mistake in the set-up yesterday so today it was a little better, though still not enough; these guys are so good and it’s a pleasure to be racing with them. Yann makes me feel old, but if I’m old, it’s a pleasure to be here on the podium with them as these guys are very, very good.
In the race, when these guys caught me, I didn’t want to lose too much time fighting with them, as I didn’t want to mess up their fight and their championship. Hopefully we can improve the car a little more for Race 3.”
Picture: WSC/FPC
