Mato Homola finished the last race of the TCR Europe 2021 season in Barcelona on P7
The top European touring car championship, TCR Europe 2021 is finished. The last race weekend was held on the famous Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Slovak racing driver, Mato Homola, finished the weekend races on P13 and P7 respectively.
Friday Free practice sessions have shown, that Mato might be able to fulfill his goal – finish the qualifying in the top 10. Mato and his team were trying several setups. Unfortunately, he was still fighting a lot of oversteer, and they did not succeed to avoid it completely even until the qualifying. Mato finished FP1 on P10 and FP2 on P18.
Mato has shown a similar pace in the Q1 session as well, so he managed to set only the 17th fastest lap time, even though he needed only 1.2 s to the first and 0.2s to proceed to the Q2. This is racing. „I fought as hard as I could. As you can see also on the results, on the fast circuit like this, it is hard for us to keep up with the pace on the quick straights, and I am not able to catch up in the technical parts. And finally, I am not entirely happy with the setup – I am struggling a little,“ said Mato after the qualifying session.
Mato started to Race 1 from P17. And again, it was a race full of contacts. Mato managed to avoid most of them, with his rational driving. „I managed to overtake several cars and stepped up to the P13. I was able to make maybe one more place, but it was not worth the risk of damaging the car. You consider things differently when fighting for the P12, and fighting for the podium,“ concludes Mato after the race.
Mato started today’s race from P14. Coronel and Azcona traveled to the Czech Republic to fight in the different series and Jelmini was penalized for incidents in Race 1. Mato had a good start, but his choice of the racing path was not the best today and he was blocked by other drivers. For a moment, he climbed to the P9, but his tires were destroyed after his chase for better positions. He fought with all the force he had and finished the race on the P10.
There were several post-race penalties for some of the drivers. 2 drivers ahead of Mato received penalizations for incidents with other drivers and another driver’s car was too light to pass the scrutineering post-race. Mato was finally classified P7. „Car behaved much better today. I had a nice race today. I feel sorry, that from the last race weekend of the season, I don’t bring more points home, but I have shown, that even with a crippled car due to the BoP, I can be competitive,“ said Mato after Race 2.
„It is too soon to evaluate the whole season now. We fought hard and we had our ups and downs. Now, I would like to say thank you to all of the partners, without them I won’t be able to race. Also to Jaro Krajci, my engineer, I am really happy that it was possible to race with him once again. At last but not least, to my Jantar Team with Janik Motorsport support, for the work throughout the season,“ closes the day young Slovakian car representant.
TCR Europe 2021:
07-09.05.2021 – Slovakia Ring (Slovakia)
28-30.05.2021 – Paul Ricard (France)
18-20.06.2021 – Zandvoort (Netherlands)
29-31.07.2021 – Spa – Francorchamps (Belgium)
03-05.09.2021 – Nürburgring (Germany)
24-26.09.2021 – Monza (Italy)
08-10.10.2021 – Barcelona (Spain)
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