Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini says he is disappointed with his performance in qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, after the Italian qualified in eighth position.
Tarquini only completed two laps in qualifying, one short of the anticipated three, after a problem with a sensor. He was then scuppered by Citroën’s Ma Qing Hua, who crashed into the barriers late in the session, preventing any further improvement.
“I’m really unhappy about the qualifying because my lap time was even worse than this morning, but we had a small problem with a sensor which cost me the qualifying,” lamented Tarquini, who was 1.2 seconds slower than his best time in second free practice. “We discovered this problem after the first two set of tyres. I pitted to replace so I had a last chance to improve the lap time but then Ma crashed in front of me so I had to abort the lap and my chance to improve was gone. For race two we will see anything can happen. We’ll try to do the best possible.”
Tiago Monteiro made similar comments to Tarquini, admitting to expecting a better lap time than he ultimately achieved.
“I wasn’t able to get the set up right in the dry today to be honest,” said Monteiro. “It was ok this morning in the wet conditions of FP1. I knew it wasn’t going to be pole position today but I thought my lap time would be better than that.
“We have to work on setup because this afternoon it just wasn’t easy to drive and we need to make the best of our race two position.”
JAS Motorsport’s Alessandro Mariani was happy with the pace of the marque’s Honda Civics, despite Tarquini and Monteiro being eighth and tenth on the race one grid. Once again independent Honda driver Norbert Michelisz was faster, qualifying in fourth.
“Technically I’m happy with the performance of the cars,” said Mariani. “The pace is good in any condition. Norbi did a very good job again and our drivers worked hard. The balance of the cars is good.
“We had the issue with the yellow flags and changing tyre pressures so our last run did not reward us. But we have pole position for race two with Gabriele on the second row. It’s not easy to overtake here so if we make a good start we have a chance.”
Honda’s Daisuke Horiuchi, who heads up the brand’s WTCC development, emphasises the importance of good starting positions for race two, where the Honda’s will line up in first, third and seventh.
“Norbi did a very good job and Tiago will push from the start in race two. Our specifications are virtually the same as in Hungary and sector one here is also very similar, as we saw with Norbi fastest in this section twice during qualifying.”