The touring car great, 60, retired at the end of last season and is now team manager of BRC Squadra Corse. The driver who was signed to replace him, 26-year-old Mikel Azcona, leads the standings so far this season, by 16 points over Cyan Lynk & Co’s Santi Urrutia.
But at the Vila Real street race last weekend, that didn’t stop 2018 WTCR champion Tarquini speaking out about the speed of the Chinese cars, which won the previous two WTCR titles with Frenchman Yann Ehrlacher.
At Vila Real, Urrutia and Ehrlacher locked out the front row of the grid for race one, then finished a bad-tempered 1-2 after a team orders spat.
Meanwhile, Azcona only qualified and finished eighth while team-mate Norbert Michelisz was fourth, despite the Hyundai Elantra N TCRs running with zero compensation weight compared to the Lynk & Cos’ 20kg, in a series that relies on Balance of Performance to maintain a level playing field. Azcona finished third in the partially reversed-grid race two to leave Portugal with a reduced points advantage.
“It’s quite frustrating,” said Tarquini. “We had a gap of 0.5s to the Lynk & Co cars in every session. This is happening every time we are at a circuit that has acceleration from very low speed, so engine rpm is quite low for everybody.
“Yet a car that is running 60kg of overall weight more than us, with the same power level, is just flying when it accelerates from this range of rpm. This is where the extra weight should have the maximum effect, but it doesn’t.
“For me that is something a bit out of the box, but it has been like this for three years now. If you look at their homologated boost table compared to us and other competitors, you can understand there is something at least strange going on. I really hope something will change soon or later.”
BRC chose not to lodge a protest over the speed of the Cyan Racing Lynk & Cos in Portugal, despite Tarquini’s complaint. When approached by Autosport to respond to the Italian’s comments, the Swedish team stated: “The engine parameters are set and monitored by the WSC [the organisation behind the TCR rulebook], based on the character of the base engines. We have full confidence in the process of the WSC related to this.”
The timing of Tarquini’s comments coincided with widely-held views within the WTCR paddock that Azcona and Michelisz did not show their true speed in qualifying at Vila Real, and also at the previous round last week at Motorland Aragon. In Spain, Azcona and Michelisz qualified eighth and ninth respectively, with only the Hungarian progressing to the top five Q3 shootout in Portugal, despite the Elantras running without compensation weight at both venues.
The WTCR has tweaked its compensation weight rules for 2022, with the amount each model carries now based on its best lap recorded in qualifying sessions at either of the two previous rounds. Given that the second race of WTCR rounds features a partially reversed grid, qualifying at the bottom reaches of the top 10 can still ensure a strong grid slot for race two, while theoretically leaving teams with a competitive Balance of Performance for the following round. Maximum compensation weights have also been reduced from 60kg to 40kg this year to avoid significant swings of performance between models race to race.
In a post-qualifying TV interview in Vila Real, Munnich Motorsport Honda driver Nestor Girolami, who had just qualified third carrying the maximum 40kg of compensation weight, alluded to other teams managing their pace without specifically naming BRC. He then repeated his comments in the official press conference.
“Suddenly some cars didn’t perform well in qualifying, which was the tendency in the last event – or we are not playing as smart or the others are playing better,” said Girolami. “With the rules we have it is clear what they are doing. I think everybody has seen that.
“Hopefully something will change for the future because I like pure motorsport and I like to push 100%. I’m sure when you see my lap from the inside I left nothing. Also I brushed my mirrors, so I was at the absolute maximum and I will sleep very well tonight because I left everything [out there].”
Tarquini denied BRC’s Hyundais were holding back their pace when asked to respond to Girolami’s comments by Autosport.
“Today we were absolutely on the limit,” he said. “Norbi crashed in FP2, Mikel bent his steering rod riding another kerb too aggressively in Q1. Norbi’s performance in Q3 was at 110% and still he was 0.5s off from the pole position time.”
