Nathanaël Berthon: “Our goal is to catch Bebu”

Comtoyou’s Nathanaël Berthon finally claimed his first pole position of the year in the last ever WTCR qualifying session in Jeddah.

The Frenchman is now setting his sights on the runner-up spot in the championship going into the two races on Sunday.

“Finally, after a lot of Q3, finally I got one pole position,” Berthon said after the session. “I’m very happy of course for myself, for the team and for the crew.”

The Jeddah street circuit features long straights and fast sections, with team strategy for slipstreaming the key in Saturday’s sessions.

Berthon worked closely with team-mate Tom Coronel, who also got into the Q3, to maximise his result.

“I’m also very happy for Tommy, who did a Q3 this year, we worked together with the slipstream, so very happy it worked out,” added the Frenchman.

Berthon is in good company as fellow Audi driver Gilles Magnus also qualified in the top five, with the RS 3 LMS proving to be very competitive around the Jeddah street circuit.

The Frenchman is targeting second place in the drivers’ championship, and is currently 27 points behind Néstor Girolami, with 55 in play on Sunday.

“We are focussed on our goal that we believe we can achieve, to catch Bebu who, unfortunately, did a bad quali,” Berthon concluded. “So we will keep pushing and take our chance and we will see.”