Michelisz comes close to the podium in Monza

2011. május 15. 16:18  szerző: Viktor Adorján

Norbert Michelisz claimed his best qualifying result to date by taking 4th on the grid for the 2011 Race of Italy and came very close to secure his first podium finish of the season. Zengő Dension Team’s driver was to best BMW driver on Sunday in Italy only on his second outing with the RWD racecar.

The 2011 FIA World Touring Car Championship continued in Italy with Round 3 at the legendary Autodromo di Monza where Norbert Michelisz lined up for the weekend for the third time of his career. This year the field didn’t get the opportunity to test on Friday but Michelisz and his team signed up for the all-day-long test on Thursday with the aim to experiment with the car setup for the unique location.

Norbert and his race engineer Gergely Bári reported a major step forward in terms of understanding the car despite the mechanical problems that prevented Zengő Dension Team to take part in the early stages of the testday forcing Michelisz to sit on the sidelines before he started his unusually long stints on the circuit.

At the end of the day a reasonably exhausted but relieved driver got out of the BMW 320 TC as he completed valuable mileage ahead the weekend.

Harvest on Saturday

The work the team put in the preparations for Monza paid off on Saturday as Norbert Michelisz posted his best qualifying result to date by taking 4th on the grid for the 2011 Race of Italy behind the three works cars of Chevrolet.

However, it was not as easy as it might look. The weather was always threatening with rain, slipstreaming was a huge factor in terms of laptimes and brake problems hindered the team over the practices before the qualification got underway but despite these issues, the team remained calm and Norbert managed to do a successful qualification that made everybody optimistic for Sunday.

Almost on the podium

Friction among the Chevrolet drivers on Saturday afternoon indicated that Race 1 in Monza won’t go down without incidents and the prospects came to reality on the last lap when Alain Menu was crashed by Yvan Muller ahead Lesmo 1 that elevated Norbert to the provisional third place in the order.

Michelisz did a good start but was stuck behind Tiago Monteiro for the majority of the race but managed to overtake the Portuguese in the second part of the distance. Then Michelisz took over the third place behind leader Robert Huff and Yvan Muller but unfortunately he couldn’t keep it until the checkered flag.

Norbert made a slight mistake in Ascari that helped Monteiro to make up the gap and to attack the Hungarian driver out of Parabolica. As they accelerated out of the last corner, Monteiro could get ahead of Michelisz again and took third by only 0.03 seconds. Yet, this was Michelisz’s 2nd best result achieved on the track and he still finished as the best independent driver and the top BMW racer.

On Race 2 things went to worse as Michelisz claimed third place with a superb start but only for a few meters before Tiago Monteiro made contact with him that put Michelisz off the line and made him to fall back in the order. He finished 7th eventually on a race where podium was well into the cards for the uprising BMW driver.