Marco Butti arguably had the pace to finish on the podium twice in the opening weekend of the TCR Europe series at Mugello, but missed out after a mistake in the first race, and a time penalty which was magnified by a late-race safety car deployment.

Making his debut with the championship-winning Monlau Motorsport team, Butti was running in fifth place at the start of the first race after a difficult qualifying session, battling alongside the rival CUPRA of Mikhail Simonov, when his rear-right wheel went just over the kerb and spun him around into the barrier.

He was able to recover to finish fifth, while in Race 2 he held on to third place at the start and was chasing the Audi of Nicolas Taylor and Junesung Park’s Hyundai.

When he tried to pass Park on lap seven, he made slight contact with the rear of Park’s Elantra which unsettled the car and allowed both Butti and Alex Ley’s Hyundai through.

The stewards handed Butti a nominal five-second penalty for the incident, but with two safety cars right at the end of the race, the penalty dropped him from second at the line, to seventh in the final reckoning, taking away a potential podium result on his first weekend with CUPRA.

“We were not the best car in qualifying, we missed some potential, but we had quite a good car in the races, I have no complaints to the team or CUPRA,” said Butti.

“(In Race 1) I made a mistake at the third corner, which was a bit stupid for the first race of the year, but we were lucky to be able to rejoin the race and the pace after that was massive, we weren’t faster than Alex Ley in the Hyundai as they seemed to have a rocket, not a car this weekend.

“I’m happier with Race 2. I’m a little worried about the penalty as it wasn’t really clear for me. It’s only the first round of the year, it wasn’t the best way to start, I had some bad luck, especially with the double safety cars at the end of the race with a five-second penalty. I at least wanted to win the race on track, as I was definitely faster than Taylor at the end, but we’ll have a good opportunity at Spa, I have some good, but also some bad memories from last year there.”