Drivers mixed on joker lap use at Mendoza

This weekend’s race at San Martín will feature a rallycross-style joker lap for the third year, with some drivers uncertain as to whether the format adds to show at a circuit where passing is already possible.

The race include two joker lap shortcuts, which reduces the lap time by around nine seconds.

“We’re still learning to race in this format here, that’s what still makes it entertaining,” said pole-sitter Damián Fineschi. “I prefer something more traditional. It’s great that we try to improve the spectacle in race, but it would be even better if we don’t make it unnatural.”

As for the race, he added: “Safety cars will be crucial, because if you take the shortcut and then it comes out, you’ll have wasted the benefit. It also allows the ones who are back in the field to take more risks”.

Facundo Chapur, from Team Peugeot Total Argentina, who celebrated his first victory in the series in Potrero de los Funes, stated the strategy on where to take the two shortcuts available for each driver, will depend also the traffic he finds on track.

“If you are in the middle of a big pack, it will be useful to move away from that. I like this kind of race, but you can have overtaking in this track without the joker lap section, so I’d move this to another track like General Roca, where you have no overtaking opportunities”.

Local hero Emmanuel Cáceres, who won the junior TC 2000 title in 2015, is running his first season in the top division for Fiat Petronas. Talking with TouringCarTimes, he gave his point of view: “I’d prefer to do it as late as possible, when the car’s performance drops a Little, and it’s harder to close gaps and chase opponents”.

pit radio informing the gaps.”

Another crowd favourite, Chevrolet YPF’s Bernardo Llaver, also gave his thoughts: “It’s a different race, it’s a very wise-thinking one. If you start at the back, you can take risks.”

“I start the race quite at the back, so we have more margin to take risks and see if we can get any profit from joker lap. It’s necessary to have a perfect communication to the team and to be very smart to react and move into the joker sector right on time”, said Lucas Colombo Russell, from privateer Escudería FE.

“I like the idea of improving show on track by adding things like joker lap,” said Toyota’s Gabriel Ponce de León, three times champion of the old TC 2000 series in 2001, 2003 and 2005. It looks fine on TV, but if I was a spectator on the grandstands, unless I can follow it somewhere like by radio, it would be really confusing. Also, I’d prefer we start improving show from scratch, by building circuits with better turns.”

Leonel Pernía from Renault Sport added:

“After two seasons racing like this, you can already think better when it’s the exact moment to try to go through the joker lap section. I feel we have made up already some intuition to decide that, helped by pit radio informing the gaps.”