Andy Priaulx got off to a positive start to his FIA World Touring Car Cup season with fifth, 13th and 13th in the three races in Morocco. Despite not having driven a front wheel drive car for 19 years, the triple world champion soon got to grips with his Cyan Racing-prepared Lynk & Co 03 TCR and is now looking forward to the second weekend of the season in Hungary.
He started fifth on the grid for race one on Saturday, finished fifth and picked up 11 points. On Sunday for the two races he finished 13th in both of them. It is nine years since the Guernsey resident had driven in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, which has now become the FIA World Touring Car Cup, and he immediately felt at home in the Marrakech paddock. These results gave him points in all three races.
Andy’s comments after this opening weekend were: “Overall it was a very good weekend as I scored points. I had a very strong day on Saturday, as I qualified well and perhaps could have had a podium, but ended up fifth. On Sunday I never had a great feeling in qualifying, which is a shame. Then I missed out on Q2 and had traffic on my fastest lap, which cost me a few tenths, and that is a problem when a second covers the top 24 cars.”
Despite this it was a great Sunday for Andy’s team, as he explained: “I am really happy for the team winning its first race of the year. That is really a historic moment for them being a Chinese manufacturer coming into a world championship and winning a race in their first weekend.”
Andy’s teammates Yvan Muller, Yan Ehrlacher, and Thed Björk had mixed fortunes, but Thed won the third and final race of the weekend.
This first race of the season was on the 2.971 Circuit Moulay El Hassan semi-permanent track in the city of Marrakech, which was transformed from a street circuit in 2016.
Image from Cyan Racing.