All three Hondas qualified inside the top 10 for the final round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at the Losail International Circuit in Qatar.
Norbert Michelisz, Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro, who all arrived in the Middle-East in contention to finish second in the drivers’ championship, were fifth, sixth and seventh in qualifying in their Honda Civic WTCCs ahead of a pair of night races.
Norbert, currently fourth in the WTCC points, progressed to Q3 with the fourth-best time of Q2 and looked set to improve his position. Unfortunately, contact with a tyre stack, placed next to the exit kerbs of Turn 4, damaged his car and left him unable to continue his lap.
There was a double-dose of bad luck for the Hungarian as his incident meant that Honda could not contest the MAC3 team time trial that followed. But despite this, Honda’s record of six victories in the ‘Manufacturers Against the Clock’ event in 2016 remained unbeaten.
Rob and Tiago looked set to join Norbert in Q3, but an unfortunate red flag midway through Q2 meant that both lost not only their fastest laps, but their prime laps on new tyres.
2012 WTCC champion Rob was just four hundredths of a second shy of progressing to Q3 and will start the main race from sixth place and the opening race from fifth.
Tiago, who had been fastest in Thursday practice, will be right behind Rob in seventh place on the main race grid and fourth for the opener.
Unusually, both races take place on Friday night in Qatar with the opening race at 2120 and the main race at 2235
rob Huff, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, said: “It was a pretty frustrating session for me, mainly because it tended to be that whoever I was behind would cut the corners pretty tightly and pull a lot of dirt on to the circuit. I’d then get that all over my tyres and it would cost me grip into the next corner or two. It’s a real shame because the car was beautifully balanced in Q1 and Q2. Fifth and sixth is kind of a no-mans’ land and isn’t the best place to be in terms of fighting for second in the championship, but our race pace is always stronger than our qualifying speed, so I’m sure I can go forwards from here.”
Tiago Monteiro, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, said: “The car was excellent today, and from that point of view, P7 is pretty disappointing. The red flags came out when I was 20 metres from the finish line on my new-tyre lap, which was also my fastest. Naturally red flags mean you lose the time you set on that lap, which was a shame, but it’s the same for everybody. Then when we resumed, I just pushed a little bit too hard and made a little mistake. P7 for the main race will be tough, but from P4 in the opening race, I’m sure I can be on the podium.”
Norbert Michelisz, Honda Racing Team JAS, said: “I don’t think pole position was possible today, but certainly I was aiming for the top three and I’m sure I could have come very close to doing that. On my Q3 lap I just pushed too hard into Turn 4 and hit the tyre stack next to the corner. This damaged the car and I went off, which also meant we couldn’t do MAC3. Thankfully there are still some hours until the races later on and I’m sure the team will be able to fix the damage.”
Alessandro Mariani, Team Principal, said: The target was to get two cars into Q3 and we didn’t achieve this; it was very close though with Rob only missing out by four hundredths of a second and Tiago by very little more. I thought Norbi could have been on the front row, but he made a mistake and damaged the car against the tyres. I’m not happy about the placement of the tyre stacks at this circuit especially at that corner, because if you have a car that isn’t handling well, you run wide at 200kph and you have a needless accident. It’s something that needs to be addressed for next year because there has to be a safer way of keeping drivers within the track limits.”
Daisuke Horiuchi, Large Project Leader WTCC Development, Honda R&D, said: “We have three very strong drivers and the cars were running strongly in practice, which gave us big hopes for qualifying. Unfortunately, we did not achieve our target of having two cars into Q3, but we have been very close. The Civic is always a strong car in racing conditions and I know that Norbi, Tiago and Rob will all fight very hard to improve their positions in both races. Our aim is to finish the season on a high
