Gabriele Tarquini happy with home win and morale boost

Gabriele Tarquini won his first race of the season at Suzuka. The Race of Japan was particularly important for Honda as it is not only their home race, but the track is actually owned by the Japanese manufacturer.

“It was the right place to score a win, but unfortunately this is only the second of the year for Honda,” said the Italian. “On a positive note, the pace of the car in the race was much better than yesterday. I was really sad after qualifying because I didn’t end up tenth on purpose, but because that was our genuine pace. Luckily it emerged to be a good chance to start at the front and win the race.”

Tarquini stressed that the race pace was really good, and a big change compared to the struggles the team experienced in qualifying.

“Generally we have shown that our race pace has improved ever since Beijing, but we must investigate very deeply what is going on in qualifying because at the moment Chevrolet and Citroën are faster than us. We need to close that gap, and we have to work very hard to improve our car on a single lap.”

Speaking of the race, Tarquini said his strategy was to try to open a gap in the early stages, because he feared Campos Racing’s Dusan Borkovic could be a threat in the long term:

“[Team-mate] Tiago [Monteiro] told me how Dusan Borkovic was quick, so it was the right strategy to open a gap in the first few laps because our top speed is not fantastic. I had saved two new tyres, so I was able to push at the beginning, and after I saw I had a 2.5s gap from the Serbian I started saving the tyres, because in motorsport you never know what might happen. It was what I had in mind and it worked out.”

Tarquini praised the Japanese fans and admitted that winning Honda’s home race made it all feel more special:”It is a very nice feeling because I felt the pressure of the fans, I could see the passion of the people in every autograph I signed or every picture I took with a Japanese fan, so I am really happy I scored this win for all of them.”

The Italian says this win will also improve the morale of the Honda troops, as after the performances shown in qualifying the mood was not good inside the garage.

“After qualifying, to be honest, there were a lot of dark faces in the garage and I was worried. We had the worst session of the year, with no cars in the top five and only two in the top ten. I know this win is very important for the people who work on the WTCC programme in Japan, they work their hearts out for it and it’s great to reward them with this result. It keeps the morale and the motivations up for the rest of the season, and also for the near future.”

Tarquini also admitted he was not expecting this win, but the race pace shown by the Civic WTCC allowed him to win the race in quite a dominant way.

“To be fair, I was hoping for this win but after yesterday I did not expect it. As I said before, we have a problem in qualifying which needs to be fixed. If we could start at the front I’m not saying we would easily win of course, but surely that would give us a much better chance. This is very motivating and another reason to push even more on the qualifying side, so that we can repeat this feat more often in the future.”

Tarquini still lies sixth in the championship, but is now only two points shy of Norbert Michelisz in fifth, and seven behind team-mate Tiago Monteiro, the top placed Honda driver in the standings in fourth.