Despite only taking delivery of the brand new KIA cee’d TCR early on Saturday, Ferenc Ficza demonstrated the car’s future potential by finishing 15th and 14th after twice starting from the back of the grid.
In fact, the Korean car had stopped during its very first lap in yesterday’s Free Practice due to a broken throttle cable. Therefore, Ficza was finally only able to drive the KIA for the first time during Qualifying and treated the session as a shake down. He qualified 23rd and lost another position on the grid due to a penalty from the previous event.
In both races, the young Hungarian was able to recover, although another penalty for a grid position infringement dropped him from 15th to 19th in Race 1.
The second race saw him again climbing up to 14th, which would have earned one point for KIA in the Model of the Year Trophy should the car not have been racing under a temporary homologation form.
“I was able to complete both races, which was an achievement in itself considering that we missed both free practice sessions and the car only turned a wheel for the first time during Qualifying. There is still a lot of work to do; the set-up has to be done from scratch, and I hope that we will have the budget to do some testing, but the car has great potential. It feels completely different from anything I have driven so far, but I am really impressed,” Ficza said.
