Yellow flags catch out Honda in qualifying in Morocco

The factory Honda pair of Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini were caught out by an inopportune yellow flag on the back straight after Tom Coronel’s Chevrolet’s air jacks activated on circuit, forcing the Dutchman to crawl back to the pits, which impeded the two factory Hondas on their end of session runs, but thanks to the high number of post qualifying penalties, Monteiro and Tarquini are elevated from the seventh and 11th fastest times they set to fourth and eighth on the grid for race one.

“There was a bit of bad luck as the yellow flag for Tom Coronel came at the wrong time when there was a group of us who’d just put new tyres on,” said Monteiro to TouringCarTimes. “Gabriele was on a quick lap as well so I think we both would have been in the top ten, but we really needed to push quite hard to be in the top ten as many cars were going faster and faster.”

Monteiro will line-up fourth on the grid for both races in his Honda Civic, and the Portuguese driver, who currently sits third in the standings, 25 points behind José María López, explains that it was a poor first run which explained why he was just outside the top ten after the half-way mark in Q2, and that the team were always aiming to go flat-out and not target the reverse grid pole for race two.

“We always wanted to go for the best time and show our maximum potential,” he explained. “My lap that was stopped by the yellow flag would have definitely been faster than the second lap which I set on the same tyres. Also Yvan (Muller) lifted off in the final corner, I think so he could play for tenth, which blocked me as well a little bit, so it was a genuine P7, but I think our best could have been P5 or P6, so in the end it played out OK.”