“Qualifying master, race disaster” Dusan Borkovic hoping for more luck on race day

Dusan Borkovic took pole position earlier today at Oschersleben, Germany. The Serbian clocked a sensational lap time in the second segment of qualifying, after looking slightly off the pace all weekend.

“The team worked really hard, so I have to thank them,” said Borkovic. “I don’t know what to say, I’m really happy. Honestly I don’t like the circuit, it’s quite slow, but I’m glad I proved I can drive on slow tracks as well. It will not be easy for me or Mat’o with this guy (James Nash) behind us.”

Borkovic tried to explain his exceptional jump from an average performance in Q1 to pole position when it mattered: “I always try to push to the maximum, but I kept it for qualifying this time. I did two good laps in Q2, but tomorrow is a different story. For me, I found it hard to get temperature in the rear tyres, so for the first few laps it’s going to be like driving in the wet. It’s very easy to make mistakes, which is worrying, but it’s racing.”

Despite his good performances, the Serbian did not have much luck on race day this year: “Someone said to me in the team ‘You are qualifying master, race disaster’. That’s so true, I laughed a lot at that. I have to say that in a lot of races it was not really my fault that things went wrong, but these things happen when you are racing.”

When asked to explain how he found the extra performance in Q2, Borkovic said to TouringCarTimes: “Ever since Thursday I had a lot of problems, I was off track several times and even clipped the barriers. I decided I’d better not push, to avoid being killed by my mechanics if they had to fix my car again. In Q2 I just decided to forget about my mechanics and just go for it. The car was very good, I really enjoyed the lap and it proved to be so.”

Borkovic is yet to win a race this year, and his best results remain two third places in Bahrain and Belgium.