James Thompson’s ninth place in the first race in Austria has been the best placing for the LADA Sport Lukoil team so far in the current season. An encouraging result in view of the next race meeting at the Moscow Raceway.
However, more than the two points scored by the Briton in the Drivers’ Championship, lap times proved that performance of the LADA Granta car is improving. After topping the time sheet in Sunday morning’s warm up, during the second race at the Salzburgring Thompson clocked the second fastest lap of 1:27.059, slower than Yvan Muller’s 1:26.875, but faster than race winner James Nash’s 1:27.180.
“I’m satisfied with the results. We scored points and were fastest in the warm-up. However even the ninth place in Race 1 doesn’t fully reflect the potential speed of our car. I had some contact with one of the drivers and broke the front suspension, so my main goal in the second part of the race was just to finish it. In Race 2 I started from 17th but managed to overtake some of our competitors, although it was very difficult. But we still did it and even set the second-fastest lap in the race,” said Thompson.
Mikhail Kozlovskiy added: “In Race 2 the car was stable from start to finish, but it was a bit hard to keep pace with some of the other cars on the straights. I had a good start and for a while I was in the top 12. Looking at the times we were quite competitive and I’m very happy about that.”
Team principal Victor Shapovalov concluded: “I’m pleased that all our hard work is starting to bring in some results. This has been an extremely positive weekend for LADA. The pace of the car is definitely improving. This is something that we saw in the warm-up and also in Race 2. We need just a little more luck and a little more pace to be closer to the pack. I’m also very happy with Mikhail’s progress, as in Race 2, he had almost the same pace as James.”
The team have planned further testing on a Russian racetrack just before heading for the Moscow Raceway.