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4
WORLD AND LIFE
TCR 2018
Competition in TCR is so close that
winning any title is not an easy task,
let alone three in a row. And yet, this is
exactly what Dmitry Bragin has
managed to do.
From 2016 nobody has been able to
dethrone TCR Russia’s czar who has just
acheived his triple crown of titles.
“I haven’t realized yet that I’m
champion once again. Right after the
championship finale I took part in the
Akhmat endurance race and in an
autocross event. So I haven’t had the
time to think about it!”
However, he considers this season as
the most impressive in his career.
“I
think the value of this new title is higher
than the previous ones. Of course it was
not easy, but in 2016 we had only a few
strong competitors, then in 2017 there
were more participants, but the LADA
Sport team faced a few problems with
the new Vesta TCR. Now the LADA cars
are more reliable and fast, while Lukoil
Racing has switched to the Audi RS3 LMS
like us; this resulted in fierce and
thrilling competition.”
Bragin has a lot of respect for his rivals.
“At the beginning of the season the
entry list was quite impressive. The
Lukoil drivers were good and the LADA
team had been reinforced with Mikhail
Grachev. You couldn’t say who would be
the leaders and the outsiders; everybody
could be a serious competitor. The
victory of Roman Golikov’s Volkswagen
Golf in the first event also proved that
the DSG cars were fast. And I have to
remark on Anton Badoev’s progress, he
improved race after race and in the
second part of the season was
consistently among the top-six.”
Competition was close, with less than
one second covering the top 10/15
drivers in qualifying, but Bragin is
convinced that
the balance was
not always fair.
“Lev Tolkachev
and Anton
Badoev drove
Cupra cars with a
sequential
gearbox and
didn’t have much
weight. During
the season Klim
Gavrilov switched
from the Audi to
the Golf for the
same reason. The
fact is that is we use both the TCR
Compensation Weight and the Drivers’
success ballast of the Russian
Automobile Federation. Altogether it’s a
lot of weight.”
Bragin is already looking forward to
next season.
“I’m sure that we’ll have
more entries and new cars. TAIF
Motorsport is in contact with Honda and
Hyundai, so possibly we are going to run
two Civic and two i30 N cars. And I know
that LADA will improve the Vesta. My
team principal Timur Shigabutdinov is
waiting for a proposal from LADA Sport,
so maybe we will use two Vesta cars…”
The Russian championship is growing
fast, but RAF regulations only allow
drivers with a Russian license to score
points. Bragin
thinks that this
should be
changed to
attract foreign
drivers.
“Should
drivers and teams
from Europe enter
the championship,
they will bring
technical
knowledge and
new challenges.
I’m convinced
that Touring Car
competition with
TCR regulations and TCR Russia in
particular is more exciting than the
current Formula 1. Now we’ve got more
TV coverage and more spectators at the
events, and I hope that SMP Racing will
do their best to attract even larger
crowds.”
The triple crown of TCR Russia’s czar