Norbert Michelisz

Norbert Michelisz has spoken of his disappointment at failing to progress to the DHL Pole Position shootout for his home rounds of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at the Hungaroring yesterday – but insists he’s not mad with his Honda team-mates Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro.

While they made it through to Qualifying Q3, Michelisz missed out by one position and will start Sunday’s Main Race in sixth on the grid.

“I’m a bit disappointed,” said the 31-year-old. “Everything went well until qualifying. I was quite confident to get into Q3, even before starting the session, but then I lost this confidence from the first timed lap. I don’t know what went wrong, maybe I was pushing a bit too hard in front of these people. This can happen. I have to check the data. Just from the feeling, my lap was quite close to the maximum but [Rob and Tiago] still managed to do a better lap time than me.

“In general I have to say we expected to struggle before the weekend but like Alessandro [Mariani, Honda Racing Team JAS Team Principal] and like Rob said, with 70 kilos [Rob] finishing third in qualifying and being like two or three tenths off pole position just shows the progress we did throughout the winter. So I have to say I’m a bit disappointed for Saturday but Sunday is another day and I’m quite confident for the rest of the season as well.”

Of his team-mates making it through to Qualifying Q3 at his expense, Michelisz added: “We have a really good atmosphere in the team and I have to say congrats to Rob and to Tiago. Of course, at home, I would love to be in front of them in qualifying but still I think with a good start it can be possible to get on the podium in the Opening Race. Of course in the Main Race it will be more difficult starting from P6 but still I think we have a good car, not only for qualifying but also for the races as well. I think it’s going to be all about the starts.”

Source: FIA WTCC