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Menu targets three in a row at Brands |
Alain Menu will look to secure victory at Brands Hatch for the third year in a row as the World Touring Car Championship heads to Britain for the latest round of the season.
Menu took Chevrolet's first WTCC win at the venue in 2006 and then won again in his Lacetti last season, although the weekend ended in controversial fashion when he was involved in an incident with Augusto Farfus in race two that saw him excluded from the results.
With his win last season coming from pole position, Menu admitted that qualifying will be vital to his chances of success again this time around with the Swiss star hoping to take advantage of the fact that he will be carrying less weight than a number of his rivals heading into the weekend.
"After Estoril I will be relatively light at Brands Hatch, carrying only the 23kgs ballast resulting from my 23 points in the championship," he said. "Of course, Brands has always been quite good to me in the past, both when I was racing in the BTCC and now in the WTCC with Chevrolet. I can't say that I will win for the third year in a row, but definitely I expect a lot from this event and I aim at being on the podium.
"It will all depend on how things go in qualifying. Last year, I was on the pole and I won. Would I have qualified second, I would have finished second, so qualifying will be very, very important. Regarding weather conditions, I would prefer to have dry races, but we will take what comes, and it will be the same for everybody.
"I spent two days testing in Pembrey and it was useful, but it's clear that at this stage of the car development, we can only gain some hundredths of a second here and there. It's more a matter of how you feel with the car rather than pure performance."
