WestCoast Racing endured another tough weekend when TCR Europe visited Oschersleben in Germany, albeith with glimpses of hope as Gianni Morbidelli put the car third fastest in Q1 and scored another fifth place in the first race.

WestCoast Racing arrived at Oschersleben with hopes of a good result after Gianni Morbidelli scored a season best fifth place in the previous round. After a monster lap in Q1 which saw Morbidelli third fastest hopes were on for a podium position. However the monster lap by Morbidelli lead to a broken radiator which stoped him from continue in Q2 thus making him start in eleventh position. From there he managed to climb back up to another fifth position with team mate Olli Kangas scoring a 13th position from 23rd on the grid. This was to be the highlight of the weekend with both cars retiring in the second race.

Team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth ponders what might have been as he looks ahead to the final two rounds in the championship.
”I don’t think any other driver would be able to drive the kind of lap Gianni did in Q1,” Dick says. ”That was just something extraordinary. Unfortunately it led to a broken radiator but with the current BoP which is based on results in Q1 this is how hard we have to push just to advance from Q1. We take the positives with us to the next round at Barcelona, we scored another fifth position and Olli Kangas also finished in the points in the first race.”

TCR Europe now takes another break before it continues at Barcelona and the Circuit of Catalunya on September 21-22.

After scoring a season best fifth place at the second race at the last round in TCR Europe at Red Bull Ring two weeks ago, WestCoast Racing are cautiously optimistic ahead of this the upcoming race weekend at Oschersleben this weekend.

Gianni Morbidelli scored a fifth place in the second race at Red Bull Ring which was a season best för WestCoast Racing in what has proven to be a challenging season in TCR Europe this year. Team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth sees reasons to be optimistic of the teams chances this weekend at Oschersleben, the place where Gianni Morbidelli scored a double victory for the team in 2017.
”We felt we had made progress with the cars lately and Red Bull Ring turned out better than we expected it to”, Dick says ahead of this weekend. ”Despite changes in the BoP which made our cars heavier we still managed to be at a competitive pace already from the first practice and Giannis excellent fifth place showed we have reasons to believe we have made some good progress. It will be exciting to see how this can turn out at Oschersleben where we had an excellent weekend in 2017. We are excited to see if we can continue to advance through the field and build on the progress we have made.”

The race weekend at Oschersleben this weekend starts on Friday with free practice 1 & 2 followed by qualifying and race 1 on Saturday with race 2 on Sunday.

WestCoast Racing left Spa with points from both races as Gianni Morbidelli finished P14 and P10 while Olli Kangas had a seasonal best with a P9 in the second race at the TCR Europe round at Spa.

The results does not tell the full story however as team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth felt the team left Spa with some very promising signs for the coming races, even if that was not shown in the points from this weekend. WestCoast Racing felt they were on the right track after first free practice and had some new set-ups to test in second practice. However the second practice was redflagged early before any meaningful tests could be carried out and WestCoast Racing reverted to the current set-up for qualifyihg which placed them in the dangerous midfield as Morbidelli narrowly missed out on an advance to Q2. After the first race the team decided to go for the new route in race 2 and use it as a test which turned out to be successful as both Kangas and Morbidelli could climb to a ninth and tenth place respectively.

Team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth felt that show there are some promising times ahead.
”It was yet another tough weekend for us and looking solely at the results it might seem not much progress was made but this was by far a much better weekend”, Dick says. ”The red flag in second practice hurt us and we did not have the margins on our side so once again we were destined to start in the midfield. I think it says a lot that both Gianni and Olli managed to get through that unscathed. The driving leaves a bit to wish for in the middle of this field. We took a chance for race 2 and found a lot of speed that would have put us much higher up the order had we done so already in qualifying. We are leaving Spa feeling much more positive about the rest of the season, and after a tough start to this season we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. We have worked hard and are now making some real progress we feel.”

Next race in TCR Europe is at Red Bull Ring in Austrian 13-14 July. In between WestCoast Racing heads back to Scandinavia for another round in the Porsche Carrera Cup Scandinavia already next weekend at the new northern race track in Skellefteå.

WestCoast Racing had a tough season opener in TCR Europe when the championship visited Hungaroring in Hungary. The Volkswagen cars was not competitive enough to make an impact on a starting grid with 30 + TCR cars. WestCoast Racing fought their way to a few points in the season opener as it now looks to the next race.

A large starting grid with over 30 cars made for an impressive start to the TCR Europe campaign. Such a large field made qualifying and finding gaps in the traffic tricky and even more challenging for the Volkswagenteams who lacked pace this weekend. Gianni Morbidelli could only manage 16th place with team mate Olli Kangas 22nd in qualifying for the two races.

That meant they would have a challenge moving up the field in the races. Gianni Morbidelli could however manage to navigate through traffic and make the most from others mistakes to climb to a ninth place and some well deserved points in the first race. Olli Kangas was stuck in a train of cars and finished 22nd. In the second race rain made the track wet and with a majority of the field on slicks on a drying track it made for some excellent opportunities to move up. Unfortunately Gianni Morbidelli was hit by another car and was forced to retire. Olli Kangas could climb up the field and finished 16th, just one position away from the points.

Team manager Dick Jönsson Wigroth was not happy after the weekend from which he had hoped for more but could only conclude that there just was more pace in the Volkswagen cars this weekend.
”This was not the season opener we had hoped for,” Dick said. ”It’s enough to have a quick glance at the results to see that none of the Volkswagencars had the pace this weekend and with such a large starting grid that makes everything even more difficult. Gianni and Olli did everything they could given the circumstances they were given. Gianni had a great race through the field in the first race and could have had at least just a good result in the second race if he wasn’t forced into retirement. Olli just missed out on a point in the second race but both of them did all they could. We just wasn’t good enough and now we meed to find more pace for the next weekend.”

Next race in TCR Europe is at Hockenheim in Germany May 24-26th. For WestCoast Racing the next race is this weekend in Sweden and the season opener of the Carrera Cup Scandinavia at Ring Knutstorp.

Result – WestCoast Racing, TCR Europe Hungaroring:

Race 1:
Gianni Morbidelli – P9
Olli Kangas – P22

Race 2:
Gianni Morbidelli – DNF
Olli Kangas – P16

I helgen inleds säsongen i TCR Europa med säsongsstart på Hungaroring i Ungern. WestCoast Racing kommer till start med två bilar som körs av Gianni Morbidelli och Olli Kangas. De ingår i ett späckat startfält med hela 31 bilar i säsongsstarten.

Ett stort konkurrenskraftigt startfält och ett nytt partnerssamarbete med Guide Gloves i teamet gör att teamchef Dick Jönsson Wigroth ser fram emot årets säsong.
– Nu känns det att det börjar närma sig och vi är väldigt spända inför säsongsstarten, säger Dick. Det är ett fantastiskt starkt och stort startfält i TCR Europa i år och vi har ett tufft motstånd. Det gör att det känns extra roligt att välkomna Guide Gloves till teamet. Med två bra förare i teamet, stort startfält i mästerskapet och en spännande kalender i mästerskapet har vi alla förutsättningar att bjuda dem på bra underhållning på och vid sidan av banan. Vi ser fram emot den här säsongsstarten och det här partnerskapet!

Guide och WestCoast Racing har ett tidigare samarbete och för Guide Gloves VD var det naturligt att utöka samarbetet och använda motorsporten som en del i företagets satsning.
– I en tid när reklamtrötthet ökar ser vi sponsorskap där våra handskar används i tuffa relevanta miljöer som ett smart och effektivt sätt att stärka både relevans och relation med målgruppen, säger Jan Lundmark, VD Guide Gloves.  Utöver associationsrättigheter ger partnerskapet med WestCoast Racing även möjlighet till internationellt relationsdrivande aktiveter, vilket vi i vår sponsorutvärdering har satt stort värde på.

Tävlingskalender – TCR Europa 2019

27-28 april – Hungaroring, Ungern
24-26 maj – Hockenheim, Tyskland
8-9 juni – Spa Franchorchamps, Belgien
13-14 juli – Red Bull Ring, Österrike
3-4 augusti – Oschersleben, Tyskland
21-22 september – Barcelona, Spanien
12-13 oktober – Monza, Italien