Mikel Azcona is delighted to start the season on the right foot with pole position at Misano, where both of BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse’s cars are well-placed on the grid after a tight qualifying session.
The former world champion has also taken the first pole position for the new iteration of the Hyundai touring car, the Elantra N EV, which only raced for one weekend last year in South Korea, where Azcona also scored the car’s first victory.
“It feels very good to start the season with pole,” said Azcona. “I’m so happy for the team, we did a brilliant job with all three cars, P1, P2 with Norbi, and Covini on pole for the reversed grid, so as a team we managed the qualifying session well. The fact we were here testing for two days in the winter helped a lot with finding a good set-up with qualifying. It wasn’t easy, we had to really push in Q2 and keep it really on the limit, but the balance was mega.”
Looking ahead to the races, Azcona says the goal is for the team to turn their qualifying result into a strong race result but also expects more of a challenge from behind.
“It was very tight with Norbi, and the goal for the race is to do the same job and finish P1 and P2. We haven’t seen the real potential of the Geely cars yet, so what we saw in qualifying isn’t the reality, and I think they will be there.”
Picture: WSC/Fastclick
