Michelisz salvages points following penalty in Brno

2011. június 19. 22:56  szerző: Viktor Adorján

Zengő Dension Team’s Norbert Michelisz took an 8th place in Brno by starting from the last row following a post-qualifying penalty imposed on him for driving an underweight car. The team paid a high price for the unfortunate mistake that ruled Michelisz out of the frontrunners in the Czech Republic.

Norbert Michelisz prepared for his “2nd home race” of the season in Brno with the aim to build on his success claimed at the Hungaroring two weeks ahead the Czech weekend in Brno. Automotodrom Brno was perceived as one of the most suitable location for the rear-wheel-drive BMW 320 TC which was a good prospect ahead the weekend.

The weekend brought a close competition as finally Volvo Polestar Racing also introduced their 1.6 turbo engines which meant that all four make of cars featured the 2011 specification engines. Everything was looking promising until the end of the qualification where Norbert Michelisz took the provisional back to back 5th places for both races.

However, the Hungarian driver couldn’t exploit the potential from this result as his car was found underweight during the post-qualifying inspection and the Stewards decided to delete all qualifying times and sent Michelisz to the very end of the grid on both races in Brno.

This was an unexpected and big hit for Michelisz’s chances as it is quite difficult to overtake in Brno and BMW proved to be a reasonably competitive force but this way Michelisz got ruled out of the runners for the podium in Brno.

Spectacular recovery on Race 1

A reasonably large crowd including many Hungarian fans witnessed Michelisz’s spectacular battle on Race 1 in a bid to lighten the damages caused by the penalty. The Zengő Dension Team driver fought his way as high as 8th in the order in a fair and constant competition with other drivers.

It was looking like Race 2 would offer even greater chances as BMW’s capabilities at the standing starts are visibly better than the FWD cars’ and with a good start Michelisz launched an even more effective campaign towards the top spots in the order.

Until Lap 5 it was looking like Michelisz would be able to get an even better result than on Race 1 but an unfortunate contact with Darryl O’Young made him to fall back in the order and stuck on the 11th place with his car that already had some previously unaddressed technical problem.

This 11th place came with no points especially since a post-race penalty for causing the collision pushed Michelisz back to 16th on Sunday evening after the driver left the circuit.

A bad weekend turned worse on Sunday but in the same time Norbert Michelisz managed to score valuable points for both the overall championship and the Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy.