John Filippi: “At least I’m not the only one who can’t start this car”

Sébastien Loeb Racing’s John Filippi was somewhat relieved after Portugal, after Citroën rival Rob Huff had difficulty getting off the line at the start of the main race, following in Filippi’s own footsteps, after he’d also made a poor getaway, then from pole position earlier this year at the Hungaroring.

The 22-year-old Corsican racked up his fourth consecutive points finish in Portugal, holding off Huff in the early stages of the main race after the Briton stalled on the grid, going on to finish in tenth.

“After qualifying, my objective was to get the points,” said Filippi to TouringCarTimes. “I need to improve my qualifying performance to get further up front, as well my starts,” he added.

“It’s nice to see a World Champion driver can have difficulty too with this car at the starts, so I feel less alone,” said Filippi. “This car is very difficult to start, and also to manage on new tyres, but everywhere I go, I’m getting much better”

Filippi was one of the drivers who found the new joker lap a good addition to the race format, even though he failed to make the most out of it himself, losing a spot to Rob Huff in the main race, and was unable to put a move on his closest championship rival Yann Ehrlacher’s Lada in the opening race.

“Before this weekend, many people were criticising the joker lap, but now at the end everybody tells me it was a great thing,” he said.

“In Race 1, I tried to do the undercut on Ehrlacher, but it wasn’t enough as I made a mistake in sector three; in Race 2, when Rob was behind me, he was pushing hard, so the best solution was to do the joker lap early and get behind him and try to follow him through.

“In the end, I was tenth but closing on (Néstor) Girolami’s Volvo. If I’d tried something on the last lap, I could have been ninth, but I’m happy with the result.”