Norbert Michelisz rounded out his second full campaign in the FIA World Touring Car Championship with two top ten finishes – but ultimately would up ninth overall in the Championship standings and fourth in the Yokohama Independents.
After qualifying, Michelisz had to start from eleventh and tenth but was able to improve on those positions in the races.
The penultimate race of the season saw “Norbi” make a good start but he couldn’t avoid the accident involving Andre Couto which happened ahead of him – this incident allowed Michelisz’s primary Yokohama Independents rival, Kristian Poulsen, to get ahead and provisionally secure the crown.
As the race progressed, Michelisz was able to take advantage of the accidents ahead of him to climb up the order and cross the line eighth overall – his Yokohama Independents title challenge was over though.
“At the start of Race 1 the accident happened a reasonably long way ahead of me still, when I got there, Andre Couto’s car was just sliding back to the middle of the track,” Explains Michelisz. “Luck was on my side and I could avoid it but I wasn’t sure that I won’t hit it. Unfortunately I had to let Kristian Poulsen to go because of the accident and from that point I knew that I would have a really tough time keep up my chances for the title. I wasn’t fast enough on Race 1 to be able to attack him but with a bit of luck I managed to take 8th. After starting from 11th, it is not that bad but for us it is still not enough.”
Round twenty four saw Michelisz lining up tenth and off the line, he was up to eighth position and throughout the duration, he continued to climb the order to reach sixth place – before having to drop back over the final couple of laps after suffering brake failure.
This cost Michelisz the chance to secure third overall in the Yokohama Independents – he had moved ahead of Franz Engstler on the second lap but would ultimately finish ninth in the race.
The Macau results mean that Michelisz finished ninth overall in the outright Drivers’ Championship with 88 points and fourth in the Independents with 124 points, just one point away from a top three finish.
Speaking about the final race of the season, Michelisz added: “On Race 2 I did a good start but in the very last moment, Yvan Muller closed the door and I had to lift off. I felt the car stable and while I was driving, I was satisfied with the pace but now I’d say it wasn’t that good again
“All in all, it would have been nice to finish 6th but I would have needed a huge luck to do it because of the brake problems. I started to fall back more and more, once I even hit the barriers. It was a very tough end of Race 2 and I don’t believe that there was more to extract today.”