Julien Briché: “This victory is for the team”

JSB Compétition’s Julien Briché dedicated his Race 2 victory at Spa-Francorchamps to his team after a challenging weekend in which two of its cars were badly damaged in crashes.

Briché suffered a heavy shunt at Raidillon in Friday’s practice second practice session, forcing an all-night rebuild which was only completed three hours before qualifying began.

Despite this, Briché went on to win an incident-packed second race which gave the Frenchman the championship lead over Gilles Magnus.

“It’s been a very, very difficult weekend for us after the crash on Friday and yesterday,” Briché told TouringCarTimes.

“The whole team repaired the car so I am very happy as this victory is for the team and everyone involved. The work has paid off.

“It has raised the morale of everyone, it really has.”

Briché now sits on 147 points, 13 clear of Magnus, while Files – who led the standings coming into the weekend drops to fouth behind Aurélien Comte.

Despite his third straight Race 2 win, Briché remains focused on getting the best results as the season progresses, provided repairs bills do not curtail his running.

“The championship is still long, we’re only three weekends into the season so we will see how it goes. We worked like crazy until 6am to get the car fixed and ready for qualifying.

“I hope that we can continue for the rest of the season because this weekend has been hard on the finances.

“I’ve never driven at the Red Bull Ring so we will see how things go. I hope we can be competitive.”