LADA Sport Lukoil’s rookie driver Mikhail Kozlovskiy represented the WTCC today at the official launch of the 2013 season of the Moscow Raceway.
Two days after making his maiden appearance in the World Championship at Marrakech, Kozlovskiy joined Ekaterina Beltsevich, the Moscow Raceway Project Director and his fellow
countrymen Mikhail Alyoshin and Sergey Sirotkin (competitors in the World Series by Renault) during a press conference at the track that will host the first WTCC Race of Russia on June 9.
“I’ve already raced here, in the national championship. So I can say I have some kind of advantage,” said Kozlovskiy who, commenting on his WTCC debut in Morocco, added: “I can’t actually say it was too hard for me. What was a little bit tough to cope with was the hot weather and the short break between the two races. I had a few problems at the start, but I managed to overtake one of the BMWs and aimed to stay out of trouble. It’s a narrow circuit and hard to pass, but I did my best to capitalise on the mistakes of other people. In the last couple of laps of the second race, I was posting better lap times than I did in qualifying. Of course I can’t be completely satisfied, but this was my first weekend in WTCC with no testing, so all considered it wasn’t too bad. Now I hope I can build on this progress at the next event in Slovakia.”