Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz admits that he expected to be battling amongst the top five, after qualifying in fourth at the World Touring Car Championship event in Slovakia.
Michelisz qualified his Honda Civic in fourth, having made his first appearance in Q3 of the season. Having been fastest of all in Q1, Michelisz followed up with second quickest in Q2 before losing out to the three Citroën drivers in Q3.
The Hungarian driver feels that the recent test session at the Hungaroring, in which he completed a day and a half’s running alongside Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro and Mehdi Bennani, has boosted his confidence for this weekend.
“I have to say yes [to having extra confidence], because we did one and a half days [of testing],” said Michelisz to TouringCars.Net. “We just tried some set-up changes which gave me a lot of confidence.
“I knew before this weekend that if the layout of the track will be as good for the car as it was in Hungary then we should be able to fight for the top five positions. This is what happened so I’m quite happy, because for me it was a qualifying lap without any problems. I was able to exploit the maximum, always, in every lap form the car – I was able to improve.”
Michelisz, who stood on the podium in Slovakia in 2013 after Honda scored a 1-2-3, is also confident with his car set-up for the longer runs in the races and, crucially, with rain forecast for Sunday in both wet and dry conditions.
“I think we are in a good position for the races tomorrow because also on the longer runs the car seems OK and the balance was quite good,” added Michelisz. “We’ll make some changes before the races tomorrow, but we are in a good position. Hopefully in the wet and also in dry conditions.”