Yann Ehrlacher, 1st: “It’s one of the toughest tracks on the planet, so ending up here on the podium is always a nice experience. It’s back-to-back for me as I won the first race last year, but starting from P2 we knew it would more difficult. We had an 80% chance to win it on the launch, and 20% chance to win it on the joker lap. We also knew how difficult it is to follow cars around this track, so when I was in free air I went for the fastest lap to move up one place on the grid for Race 2. The safety car didn’t help, as I was about to go for a double joker which would have made our race a bit easier. Thanks to the organiser for putting those jokers in, that made the race a lot more interesting, even if it made it a bit more difficult for us.”
Mikel Azcona, 2nd: “I’m happy to be here as I had a technical issue on the warm-up lap and so I had to go straight to the grid so the team could fix the problem. That meant I was compromised in terms of warming up the tyres and building up the pressure. The guys did an amazing job to fix the car on the grid, and I didn’t know if I was going to finish the race with this issue. I was focussed on the start, I had a bit of wheelspin and lost a position to Yann, but then just focussed to bring the car home. The problem was that I had no brakes, in Paul Ricard you can be more relaxed with that, but here in Vila Real not so much, but the team fixed it, it was not 100% but we finished second which was like a victory.”
Santiago Urrutia, 3rd: “I was P4 in qualifying and P3 today, so we keep collecting points. There was not much I could do, I was expecting a mistake from Mikel, but it didn’t happen, so now we focus on Race 2. Even if you have good pace here, it’s impossible to overtake unless the guy in front makes a mistake. The only chances were the start and the joker laps. We did the jokers very well, and we’ve got another podium, so I’m very happy.”
Picture: WSC/Fastclick-AvensImages
