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Couto keen on more Guia Race action following WTCR debut

André Couto doesn’t want his return to FIA World Touring Car racing in Macau to be a one-off with the local hero already looking ahead to future Guia Race outings.

Couto was one of six wildcards competing in the WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup presented by OSCARO season showdown last week.

Driving a Honda Civic Type R TCR, Couto improved his result in each of the three races, claiming a weekend-best of P18 in Race 3.

Afterwards, the Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix winner from 2000, said: “I’m very pleased that I’ve had the chance to return to the Macau Guia race with a Macanese team and we’ve had great support from the local fans. I’d like to have given them a better result to cheer for, but the reality is that the races didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. We’ve had a small technical issue all weekend that’s costing us power through every phase of acceleration and that’s made it tough to compete against the full-time cars. I think the team can benefit from the experience of competing here and it would be great to come back another year much stronger.”

Couto’s Honda was run by the Macau-based MacPro Racing Team. Its head Miguel Kong said: “We’ve reached the chequered flag in [all] races, making it a 100 per cent finishing record on what is our debut WTCR weekend. We’d have liked a bit more pace, but we were disadvantaged by a technical issue that was costing André power, which we haven’t got to the bottom of, and by carrying the extra 20kg wildcard weight. Overall it’s been a positive experience.”

Zdroj: fiawtcr.com