Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz finished the 2014 World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) season as the top Honda driver, after outscoring works’ Honda duo Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini in Macau.
Michelisz finished fourth overall in the championship thanks to two strong races on the Circuito da Guia in Macau. The Hungarian has experienced a remarkably consistent season and only failed to score in one race, when power steering problems prevented him from starting the second race of the season in Morocco.
In race one in Macau, Michelisz got a near perfect start to jump from fourth to second, passing two of the three Citroëns in the process. He finished the race in second, scoring his fourth podium of the season.
“When the lights went out I got a really good grip and fought for the first corner,”said Michelisz. “It is so important round here with almost no chance of passing.”
In race two, as Michelisz predicted, passing was difficult and the Hungarian finished in fourth, having made slow progress from seventh on the grid.
“My target this weekend was to score points and to try to be the best Honda driver again,” added Michelisz. “Now I have finished fourth in the Drivers’ World Championship just ahead of Tiago and Gabriele so I am very happy. I know how important the start is in Macau and it worked well for race one. The second race was more difficult but I got the target right by scoring more points.”
Michelisz was the only independent driver to score points in Macau, for Proteam Racing’s Mehdi Bennani experienced a disastrous end to the season. The Moroccan was taken out of a points position in race one whilst trying to lap a backmarker, which caused significant damage to his Civic and prevented him from even starting race two.
“What a shame, what a weekend!” said Bennani. “I only managed to get two clear laps in qualifying so did not have a good grid position but after the start I was able to fight back and climbing up to ninth and into the points. That was until that car made the movement on the straight…”
As a result Bennani dropped out of the top ten in the championship, losing out to LADAs Rob Huff.