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Former TCR Eastern Europe champion Milovan Vesnić has had a difficult start to the season. He had to retire from two races and he didn’t score as many points as he’d hoped. But Milovan Vesnić and his team ASK Vesnić are doing everything they can to put their Audi RS3 LMS TCR back at the front in the results.
The start of the new season didn’t go well for you. You had another DNF at Red Bull Ring. What happened in Austria?
In short, the intake air temperature sensor died. The car switched into safe mode without power. I tried to restart the car, but there was no throttle at all. Again, it was a good start to the race, but that was all. I was moving from 8th position to 4th, but, as in the first race in Hungary, I wasn’t able to drive more than one lap. That meant starting from the back again in race two. Disaster struck once more because we didn’t have a racing car that could pass 13 drivers in one lap, so finishing 7 th was the best I could do.
You have an Audi RS3 again, but it’s a different car than the one you drove in your previous season. Have you become accustomed to this car, or is there still room to improve and more work to do on the car?
Before this season, we prepared the car as best as we could. The team is good and we know everything about this model, but we do need to improve more, especially regarding suspension. For that, we need money. The stupid problem with the sensors is something that we couldn’t predict.
It goes without saying that your Audi is an old car, not really capable of racing against newer cars. So how do you see your chances in TCR Eastern Europe?
As you can see after four races, the top of the standings is held by an old Audi version. Groszek is driving well, he’s clever, and he’s had enough luck to avoid problems and to finish all of the races with points. So the car can still be competitive, but after the updates on Hyundais and Cupras, I think that we won’t be able to compete equally in the future. I won’t even talk about the Mégane – that’s a WTCR car. We were losing by 0.6 seconds to the pole sitter in the first sector of Red Bull Ring, and that sector is just two straights and one turn. I was faster in the second technical part of the circuit, and, in the third fast sector, I lost 0.2 seconds again. That says a lot about the new cars.
Luckily, there is also the Trophy category for older cars, so did you set any goals for this category?
My goals are gone after two weekends of bad results. We lost too many points to fight for the top of the table. But we will do our best to get some podiums in the upcoming races.
However, your overall speed is there, as we could see in the qualifying and during the races, so your bad luck and DNFs must be frustrating… How do you cope with it?
I was hit by another car at Hungaroring and at Red Bull Ring, as we spoke about, and I had electrical problems, so…yes, it’s frustrating. We’ve worked so hard, but for no results. It’s not the first time in my career that I’ve had ups and downs, and I am still here. The wheel of fortune keeps turning around, so we will be on top again soon.
As you said, there is always hope for better results in following events. The next will be at Poznan, what do you think about your chances there?
It was a hard decision, but we aren’t going to race in Poland. Our budget is tight, so the money we would have spent there will be used to improve the car and prepare for Grobnik. So see you again in Croatia in July. I wish the best of luck to all drivers in Poland.
