Michelisz equals best qualifying result in Brno

2010. július 31. 17:13 | még nem szólt hozzá senki.  szerző: Viktor Adorján

Norbert Michelisz showed one of his best qualifying performances in the WTCC to date and took his car to the 6th position on the grid. He become the best rookie driver again. Hungarian fans have already shown passion and celebrating Norbi's success in the paddock.

Better than usual results were achieved by Norbert Michelisz on the free practices of the 2010 Race of the Czech Republic. Hungary's first ever full time WTCC driver finished 7th and 11th but the team was not confident that these results show the true potential of the package.

It was known before the race that the Automotodrom Brno is not the best circuit for a SEAT Leon TDI and based on the results from the past years everybody expected BMW to be the car to beat especially after Colin Turkington's pace on Free Practice 2.

Team Principal Zoltán Zengő and Norbert Michelisz shared the view that the performance shown on the free practices are close to the real performance of the car and nobody was sure of advancing into the 2nd part of the qualification.

It was a little bit of a worry considering many Hungarian fans are already here to support mainly Norbert Michelisz but former SEAT Leon EuroCup team mate Gábor Wéber is also receives a the cheering. At the end of the day Saturday turned out to be a success for the Zengő-Dension Team.

Two parts are sometimes three

Qualification in the WTCC is divided into two parts; a 20 minutes Q1 is followed by a 10 minutes shootout featuring the fastest 10 cars from Q1. This year Norbert Michelisz has always earned the right to participate in Q2 therefore advancing into the 2nd part is often among the expectations.

This time qualification was like it was divided into three parts as the first session was red flagged 10:01 into the session because returnee driver Fabio Fabiani stuck in the gravel trap and it took time for the marshalls to remove the car from the deep trap that captured the car.

By that time Norbert Michelisz was on the 5th place behind Robert Huff, Alain Menu, Yvan Muller and Augusto Farfus and prepared for an upcoming outing. This was delayed by the red flag but obviously took place after the session got restarted.

Michelisz stayed in the pits for a while and slipped back to 9th which is a dangerous position but successfully improved his time for a 2:11.601 which kept him ahead rookie opponent Michel Nykjaer and meant that he advanced into the Q2. Andy Priaulx seemed to be a big threat but the last flying lap didn't work out for the triple world champion and Priaulx dropped out by finishing 11th.

Photos from the Qualification

Exceeding the expectations

Three Chevrolets, five SEATs and just two BMWs got into the Q2 which turned out to be a one lap shootout as the majority of the field waited for minutes to go out to the track and put on everything for only one lap.

We've already seen that Norbert Michelisz is often able to find hidden performance for qualifying but today he made the whole team surprised and very happy by completing the 6th fastest time and earned a spot in the third row for the third time this year.

The Hungarian driver did a 2:11.436 which was only a bit more than 0.2 seconds slower than the fastest SEAT Leon TDI driven by Gabriel Tarquini who finished 2nd and will start alongside pole sitter Robert Huff. The British driver did a 2:10.860 in his Chevrolet Cruze and took his first pole position of the season.

Row 2 is reserved for BMWs as WSR's Colin Turkington took third ahead works driver Augusto Farfus. Swiss Chevrolet driver Alain Menu will begin the race behind Norbert Michelisz who will be attacked Tom Coronel and Yvan Muller from behind. Jordi Gené and Michel Nykjaer took 9th and 10th, the Dane is the closest threat for a possible Rookie Challenge victory.

"I felt the same in the car," he answered when he was asked whether this was one of his best qualifying performance to date. - "I made quite a lot of mistakes in Q1 and I didn't have a clean lap in Q2 either but obviously everybody has something [wrong] in their laps.

"I think the 6th place is more or less showing the pecking order of this weekend. To be honest when I was 7th after Free Practice 1 I felt the picture is unreal and expected for a hard task regarding advancing into the top 10.

"Gabriele Tarquini was around 0.2 seconds ahead me, I wasn't far from him. This is absolutely positive, I'm really happy for it, I didn't see it coming," he admitted before the interview got ended because the Hungarian driver arrived to the garage where many friends and fans waited for him to celebrate together the great result.

Team Principal Zoltán Zengő was looking delighted and relieved to see his protégé enjoying the limelight but refused to start to celebrate yet as Sunday is the race day and the whole team is hopeful of seeing many Hungarian fans in Brno for the WTCC and SEAT Leon EuroCup races.

Hozzászólások