LADA SPORT ROSNEFT finished Rounds 3 and 4 of the 2015 FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) in Marrakesh, Morocco with the first points for the LADA Vesta TC1 challenger, after Britons Rob Huff and James Thompson both breached the top ten.
In the first race, the team enjoyed solid reliability and all three cars finished strongly in tenth, 11th and 12th positions after starting the race at the back of the field having elected to make engine changes before the weekend’s events commenced.
Less satisfactory for the team was an incident that sidelined the Vestas of Huff and Mikhail Kozlovskiy, the Russian unable to stop in time for the hairpin and making contact with his hapless teammate on lap two of the 14-lap race.
It was a disappointing end to the race for the pairing, as both were running in the top ten after strong starts for the ROSNEFT-backed Vesta cars.
In keeping with the new-found interest in the Russian manufacturer’s World Championship challenge, the team welcomed a vast number of guests to the LADA SPORT garages across the weekend, including executives from its title sponsor, Russian oil giant, ROSNEFT, leading Russian motoring journalists, as well as delegates from the Russian and French consulates in Morocco.
Delivering a points scoring result in race one, Huff said: “It was a hard fought race on the Moroccan streets today, the temperatures, bumpy track and heavy braking zones making it a tough afternoon’s work, so I am really happy to have got our LADA Vesta into the top ten so early in its development process.”
On scoring his race two points for the LADA SPORT team, which he has been part of since 2009, Thompson said: “I am proud that Rob (Huff) and I have got the first points for the LADA Vesta and, while it isn’t as much as we ultimately want to deliver, it’s a solid reward for the amount of effort that everybody has put in over the past months to bring this project to the grid.”
Kozlovskiy said of the incident that saw Huff and himself retire from the second WTCC race, said: “I am sorry that our races ended this way. I had been having some difficulties with the brakes in race one, as this track is very punishing (on brakes). I had made a great start and was right with Rob on the opening lap but, as I came into the braking zone for the hairpin, I did all I could to avoid the impact, but was unable to do so.”
LADA SPORT ROSNEFT moves on to Germany’s notorious Nürburgring Norschleife for an official WTCC test, prior to the first European race of 2015 at the Hungaroring near the Hungarian capital, Budapest (2-3 May).