Jani baffled by lack of pace
Neel Jani admits he is baffled by Team Switzerland's lack of pace compared to its main rivals at Brands Hatch this weekend
The reigning champion team is locked in a three-way title fight with Ireland and Portugal at this weekend's finale, but so far Jani has endured a troublesome weekend.
That was topped off by Adam Carroll taking a superb double pole position for Sunday's races, while Jani had to make do with eighth and fourth places on the grid for the sprint and feature race respectively.
"We don't really understand what the problem is," Jani told AUTOSPORT. "Our normal base set-up didn't work on Friday, so we've gone 180 degrees the other way.
"Things got better, but not to where we normally are. We are missing three or four tenths of a second, and we can do whatever we want but it doesn't give us anything."
Jani added that the situation is made even more confusing because the car feels good to drive, despite not having enough pace.
"I have a little bit of understeer, but that's not three or four tenths," he said. "We can't figure out what has happened. We're not all over the place, the car feels good, which is strange."
Switzerland gambled in qualifying for the feature race by using its one power boost lap in the first segment, in the hope that something would disrupt the second session when everyone else was doing their quickest laps. It did not pay off, but Jani expects the team to continue gambling on race day.
"Tomorrow we have to gamble a lot, and that's what we'll do," he said. "Adam is quick, he is going well.
"He has the edge over me, so all we can do is hope he has a bit of bad luck tomorrow. With our pace we can't beat him."
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