TCR Salzburg Preview
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| Written by: Fanni Váradi | Photo: TCR Series |
The ninth and tenth round of TCR International Series will take place at Salzburgring in the end of this week. In the following article, we are collecting some useful informations about this event and the track.
Previous TCR events in Salzburg and the track:
This is the third time when the TCR International series returns to Salzburg. The Austrian city is many teams favorite place thanks to its superb alpin esetting, the local people’s warm welcome and the racetrack’s characterictics itself.
In the past 2 years, four different drivers could finsh ont he top of the podium. Last year Mikhail Grachev won the first dry race benefiting from a technical issue that stopped Pepe Oriola’s SEAT four laps before the end. As the Salzburgring locates between beautiful mountains, it makes weather conditions change more quickly. The rain arrived for the second race. When everybody was making mistakes on the wet flooding track Jean-Karl Vernay managed to bring his Volkswagen Golf to first place.
In 2015, Kevin Gleason with Honda Civic and Michel Nykjaer with SEAT Leon won the sunny races in Salzburg.
Set up will be very important during the week to avoid issues with wear of the front-left tyre. Avoiding high-speed contacts, and being careful fith the pile-up at the first chicane can be also the key to success in Salzburg.
Ballast:
Roberto Colciago, Frédéric Vervisch and Stefano Comini will carry Success Ballast at the Salzburgring.
M1RA driver Colciago scored 47 points in Monza, which is the highest from the last round. His success made his Honda Civic be heavier with the maximum possible ballast, 30-kilo.
The Comtoyou Racing’s drivers Vervisch and Comini will carry 20 and 10 plus kilos on their Audi RS3 LMS cars.
Championship:
Jean-Karl Vernay is still leading the championship, as noone could have stopped him since Bahrain’s first race. However during the previous event in Monza Roberto Colciago and Stefano Comini closed the gap from the Frenchman.
Colciago was able to cut the gap by twenty-five points and Comini by seven, which means currently 16 and 18 points behind Vernay.
Colciago’s teammate the 17 years old Hungarian talent, Attila Tassi ranks fourth with 37 points from the leader, just before Pepe Oriola in fifth position, 10 points adrift.
Timetable for the weekend:
Saturday:
10:00- 10:30 Free Practice 1
12:00- 12:30 Free Practice 2
15:00- 15:35 Qualifying
10:00- 10:30 Free Practice 1
12:00- 12:30 Free Practice 2
15:00- 15:35 Qualifying
Sunday:
13:05 Race 1
14:35 Race 2
(all times GMT +2)
13:05 Race 1
14:35 Race 2
(all times GMT +2)
