Esteban Guerrieri claimed his first win and the first for GOAT Racing in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at Interlagos last week. With the highest score of the weekend, the Argentine is now firmly in contention for the title.
Guerrieri closed to 15 points of points leader Norbert Michelisz at the end of the weekend, converting second place on the grid in his Honda Civic Type R FL5 into victory in Race 1, jumping ahead of Santiago Urrutia’s Cyan Racing Lynk & Co, while in the second race he went from ninth to fourth, picking up another strong points haul.
Guerrieri was also lucky to avoid the opening lap incident at Turn 7 in Race 2, which saw visits to the pit lane for both BRC Hyundai’s Néstor Girolami and Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s Yann Ehrlacher.
“It was a very intense first lap,” said Guerrieri. “I made a good start overtaking Marco Butti and Yann after the Senna esses. Then there were Girolami, Raphael) Reis, and Ehrlacher on the outside, so I was cautious as I knew it was important to be on the inside for Turn 7 and the next corner. Then they went three wide and made contact, and I just went for the gap. That was the important move for the race as I overtook three cars in one go.
After that I had a good pace, but it was not necessary to push as I had three Lynk & Co cars in front of me and it would be a crazy dogfight if I got involved there. I also decided to save the tyres as my teammate Dušan Borković blew up his front right tyre. We could have slowed down to drop to P5 and let Santi finish ahead and take the 40kg to Uruguay, swapping two points for 10kg, but the call from the team was to take the points, as Michelisz, the one we’re fighting, also has 30kg so it was not worth it. Hopefully it turns out to be the right decision at the end of the championship - so we go heavy to Uruguay, but with a big bag of points from this event, which was the goal. I’m really happy!”
Picture: TCR South America
