First win for Tassi puts Civic Type R TCR on top of the world

It's been a long time coming and not easy to achieve but I'm so happy with my first win. I'm of course disappointed that I was not able to stand on the podium with Tiago. After his problem, I don't know how many laps there were but it felt like the race just went on forever, and the whole thing was made even more difficult by the fact that I had a radio problem, so all I could do each lap was focus on perfecting my exit onto the two straights so the cars behind had no opportunity to pass. Thank you to ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport for their amazing work and to Honda as well. It’s an amazing feeling.

First of all I'm really, really happy for Attila - every time it looks like we will share the podium something happens, but congratulations to him. I would have preferred it to be a different way of course, but it wasn't meant to be. It's disappointing to miss out on a win in this way, but I've had this before in my career so while it's hard to swallow at the moment tomorrow will be a new day. There are plenty of factors that will come into play, but the championship is long and we have a good package, a good car to fight with, and we are still in touch in the title fight.

My weekend didn't end up as good as it looked like it could have been. In Race One we gained some positions, but the main focus was on Race Two. The start was unfortunate and I accept part of the blame, but the situation was difficult because I was dealing with two things that came together at the same time. I noticed on the grid the lights were very hard to see from pole so I had to bend my head down, and there was also an issue with the revs. By the time I tried to get my head down the lights were already off and I got swamped. Still, I had a lot of fun - I made some nice overtakes and felt the car was really hooked up - there is just a bit of a sour taste of not being able to capitalise on our poles. But we are still in the fight and have Attila's victory to celebrate; congratulations to him.

Unfortunately in Race One I made a mistake at Turn 1 and locked up my tyres, which cost me the possibility of scoring points. That also meant I had to start race two from the back because there was not enough time in parc ferme only to repair my car, but finishing 13th after a clean race and some good fights was a good recovery, even if it meant our Sunday was quite a way from the target. I'm sorry Tiago missed out on winning his home race, but I'm happy for Attila because he deserved that win and drove really well. I hope to come back stronger at Aragon; it will be tough for us because we're likely to have maximum compensation weight, but we will push hard and work together as always to get the cars in the top 10.

There are mixed feelings, but of course we are very happy about Attila scoring his first win. He fully deserves this and has done a great job all weekend - he was on the pace in qualifying, and then he made his fortune by getting into second at the start of Race Two. We can only be sorry for Tiago because he built a very strong lead and would have deserved a victory at his home race. With Nestor, bad luck in Race One meant he was in a bad position for Race Two but he made a strong recovery and gave the mechanics a reward for their work to get the car ready, and obviously it's a shame Esteban couldn't convert his pole into a win. Now we look forward to Aragon and trying to score more good points.

We have to start by congratulating Attila on his first victory in the WTCR - he's an extremely talented driver and it's fantastic to see this rewarded, particularly after such a mature and composed performance in Race Two. The big disappointment is that he was not able to share the podium with Tiago, who drove perfectly after taking the lead at the start. It's a shame as well that for different reasons Esteban and Nestor were not able to take advantage of their qualifying positions, but having seen good pace from the Honda Civic Type R TCR this weekend we can at least leave satisfied that the end result was a win.