Jaap van Lagen in the top ten and makes a “good start” in Germany

Jaap van Lagen makes his World Touring Car Championship return this weekend and was ninth fastest in the Thursday test session, the leading of the two Lada Vestas entered this weekend, and is happy with his showing on only his second outing in the TC1 class car.

The Dutch driver was 5.2 seconds from the fastest lap of Citroën Total WTCC’s José María López in the one-hour test session at the Nürburgring, and believes there’s still more pace to be found from himself and the car.

“I think it’s a good start to the weekend,” said van Lagen to TouringCarTimes. “I’ve only been in the car once last week in Budapest, so it’s my second time in the car, and it’s not an easy car with nearly 400bhp on the front-wheel, so I can still improve myself a little bit.”

Van Lagen returns to the the WTCC and Lada Sport after six years away, last driving for the team at Macau in 2009, but with two key technical changes since then, the 38-year-old admits the car is quite different to the ones he drove back then.

“(It was) a completely different car with the 110 and the Priora,” he said . “The wheelbase was shorter, the car and engine was smaller, it was 280bhp and now it’s 380bhp, so everything was different; but now the team is more professional, has more know-how, is working quicker and we can definitely do a better job than in the past.”

With Citroën set the show the way if their testing pace is to be believed, the Dutchman admits the top ten reverse spot on what is presently his only scheduled race with the Lada squad is somewhat tempting.

“Of course if I’m ninth or tenth or qualifying it’ll be interesting. If you can make a gap in the beginning while the CItroëns are behind the other cars, maybe we could get a gap big enough, but I don’t know as the Citroëns are really fast in a straight line, but we will see. I’ll just enjoy it and try to do my best and score good points for the team.”