Aurélien Comte enjoyed a much more positive weekend in Germany, which played host to the third and fourth rounds of the 2019 TCR Europe Touring Car Series, where he scored a first podium of the season for DG Sport Compétition.
The former WTCR race winner started the weekend off quietly as he and the team worked to perfect the setup of the Peugeot 308 TCR to this new venue. The team’s hard work showed as Comte finished in second place overall in the first Free Practice session.
The Frenchman backed up this pace in Qualifying as he worked hard to get the Peugeot into the top twelve for Q2. Comte was rewarded with sixth place on the grid for race one and later, he would be promoted to fourth place on the reverse grid for race two.
Despite contact with Daniel Lloyd in race one, the Peugeot driver was able to keep up his race pace and would take a valuable seventh place at the finish as he was overhauled by Santiago Urrutia at the end. This was already an improvement on his Hungary performances with more to come in race two.
Starting in fourth place for race two, thanks to a grid penalty awarded to Lloyd, Comte managed to stay ahead of the slow-starting Urrutia at the start of the race. On the run down to the hairpin, the Frenchman soon passed Jessica Bäckman in the Hyundai and stayed ahead to secure second place at the flag.
Second place was evidence that he and the team were finding the sweet spot in the Peugeot. Comte expressed his happiness by scoring a podium finish but knows that there is more to come.
“Our weekend finished on a positive note, It’s a good result, but we could still have done better. You can count on us to continue working on the car with a view to the upcoming meetings, in order to grab a maximum amount of profit from the series’ format,” explained Comte
“Race 2 went well, but I wasn’t really able to threaten the leader, I did what I could to keep all the other behind me, whilst avoiding to put excessive wear on my tyres.”
