By taking his maiden win in the TC2T class in Race 2 at Suzuka, John Filippi signed quite an achievement: breaking the triumphant string of successes of the Liqui Moly Team Engstler.
The German outfit had, in fact, won all the previous races, except one at the Slovakia Ring.
Still, the 19-year-old Frenchman was not entirely happy, as his victory was favoured by Franz Engstler’s retirement.
“It is nice to win and this is a good reward for Campos Racing and all the hard work put by the mechanics,” admitted the Corsican with true racer spirit, “but I would have preferred not to inherit P1 because of Engstler’s technical problems. This said, it is true that at Suzuka we had a much better pace, especially in qualifying, running only one tenth of a second behind Engstler. I would have hoped for a better result in Race 1, but Münnich got in-between Franz and me and I was never in a position to pass him.”
Always calm and understated, the young man from Bastia, who alternates racing with his university studies in Paris, is taking part in his maiden season in the WTCC at the wheel of a SEAT León WTCC run by Spanish squad Campos Racing.
“It has not been an easy season,” he commented, “but racing at this level is certainly very interesting and I have learnt a lot. This first win, of course, comes at the right moment, as we start planning for 2015.”