James Thompson claimed it was a case of mission accomplished on the streets of Porto after picking up two finishes on his World Touring Car Championship debut for the factory LADA Sport team.

The Briton was given the honour of debuting the new Priora on the Portuguese street circuit, with the aim for the weekend being to put as much mileage on the car as possible – with the only running prior to the event being a brief shakedown test.

Thompson was forced to start from the back of the grid due to a ride height infringement and took the flag in a trouble-free 18th place having avoided a number of the incidents that occurred ahead.

That was followed by a 15th place finish in race two, with the Priora again running without problems, and Thompson said the team now had a good base to work with heading to Brands Hatch in two week's time.

"We achieved everything we wanted to do, which was get the car to the finish, confirm its reliability, and deliver it back in one piece, so that everyone can now concentrate on development rather than having to fix things," he said. "There are some things on the car that we have been improving all weekend, so now we need to continue this process in a methodical way.

"I think we've managed to find a good base level of reliability so now we can just focus on trying to make the car quicker. I've enjoyed the weekend a lot and I'm looking forward now to racing on home territory at Brands Hatch in two weeks time."