Norbert Michelisz has best shot at a second home win with race two pole

Norbert Michelisz will start from provisional pole position from the reversed grid second race tomorrow at the Hungaroring, the the 30-year-old Hungarian, who already attracted a strong crowd just to qualifying today, knows he has his best shot yet of scoring his first win since Suzuka 2013.

MIchelisz was just tenth fastest at the end of the second part of qualifying, strategically opting not to improve his time after it was clear that no improvements were forthcoming from his independents’ class rivals Mehdi Bennani or Stefano D’Aste, who ended the session 11th and 12th fastest.

“If you said before the weekend that I wouldn’t progress into Q3, I probably would have been disappointed, but we saw that we didn’t have a realistic chance to fight for the top three so we decided to have a different strategy,” said Michelisz after qualifying.

“Of course it’s difficult to aim for tenth position, but after the first run and seeing that Mehdi (Bennani) had decided to stay on circuit and that he was behind me, we knew that it was difficult for him to improve on the second lap.”

Assuming no dramas befall the Hungarian in race one, he will start from pole position from race two in the fast-starting Honda Civic WTCC, with the two ROAL Motorsport Chevrolets of Tom Chilton and Tom Coronel behind him, at a track where Gianni Morbidelli took the first non-Citroën win of the season a year ago thanks to the limited number of passing places at the circuit.

“I don’t like to put myself in a position where I am saying that I am going to win the race, but we know our car starts really well, and I am starting from first position on this circuit,” he said. “I am happy with the position and a possible podium but of course we need to improve overall.”