Michelisz 9th and best rookie in silly qualifying

2010. július 17. 17:51 | még nem szólt hozzá senki.  szerző: Viktor Adorján

Zengő-Dension Team's Norbert Michelisz took 9th place in Qualifying for tomorrow's Race of UK following a tactical Q1 and a silly Q2 that saw 11 cars driving on the track. Michelisz is the best rookie again and the only SEAT driver who was present on the post-qualifying press conference.

Only 60 minutes of tracktime was available for the field before the Qualification for tomorrow's Race of UK to adjust the cars to the characteristics of the unique Brands Hatch circuit. The two practice sessions were even shortered because various incidents and off track slides and every lost minutes were missed by Zengő-Dension Team.

The reason for this was that Norbert Michelisz and Technical Director Arnau Niubó had to overcome on the problems that popped up on Free Practice 1 that saw Michelisz taking only 17th with no particular reason.

"In the morning it was looking difficult because we had no mechanical problems with the car and I was only P17 and I felt that I didn't have the pace to catch up with the guys on the front and I was a little bit unconfident for getting into Q2," said Norbert Michelisz after the qualifying.

For Free Practice 2 it looked like nothing has changed but the Hungarian driver reported that as a result of the changes they made, the car become a lot easier to handle and especially faster on the circuit where the new tyres and a well prepared car make a huge difference.

This trend continued into qualifying as well with Norbert Michelisz doing a 1:34.017 immediately that put him to 2nd in the order for a limited period of time as he quickly slipped back to 6th behind Yvan Muller, Augusto Farfus, Robert Dahlgren, Fredy Barth and Darryl O'Young. Then it was time for Michelisz to pit after just one timed lap and waited for his second run that put him to 4th with a 1:33.441.

Eight minutes were remaining of the session then and Michelisz came back to the pits and waited for the time to elapse. In the end Yvan Muller was fastest with a 1:32.658 ahead Robert Huff, Alain Menu, Gabriel Tarquini, Andy Priaulx, Tiago Monteiro, Colin Turkington, Norbert Michelisz, Augusto Farfus and Franz Engstler. 11th placed Tom Coronel was on a promising lap but he made a mistake going into the start/finish straight.

Photos from Qualifying

11 instead 10

Q2 is supposed to be a shootout for the 10 fastest cars in Q1 but this time 11 cars took part in the session as initially 10th placed driver Franz Engstler wasn't allowed to go out while 11th placed Tom Coronel was given the green light.

This caused a reasonably big confusion in the pits and the media centre as well but racing quickly regained the attention as Yvan Muller did a rare mistake and showed a big slide to the crowd. Norbert Michelisz started the session on P5 with a 1:33.334 and he improved his time for a 1:33.261 to take the 9th place in the provisional classification.

"As the qualifying started with the new tyres I felt immediately that we did a good job in free practices. The balance of the car was quite neutral so I could do clean laps on the qualifying. Despite this my last lap, the most important one in Q2 was not clean. The car went sideways before the last corner.

"Maybe I was looking a little bit too much to my dashboard as I saw that I was faster than my fastest lap by around three tenths. I think the car has the potential to be on the level of the fastest SEAT so I'm confident for tomorrow," he added.

Chevrolet dominated the session as Muller's pole was extended by Robert Huff's 2nd and Alain Menu's third place. Colin Turkington finished 4th with his eBay Motors BMW 320si and become the fastest independent driver.

Fifth placed Gabriele Tarquini was the first of the SEAT fleet ahead Andy Priaulx and Tom Coronel. Tiago Monteiro was the last to get ahead Norbert Michelisz who'll be joined by Augusto Farfus in the 5th row tomorrow. Franz Engstler ended up 11th in the unofficial classification.

The main task for tomorrow will be to survive the first half lap without any major accident and fallback and to try to take advantage of any potential racing incidents in order to take at least the 8th spot and gain pole position for Race 2.

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