Photo: Honda Racing WTCC

Norbert Michelisz maintains his independents’ lead after Germany

Zengő Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz relished his first race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, and believes the car had the pace to fight for second in the first race, but contact in the second race saw his independents’ points lead reduced to just three points ahead of Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani.

The Hungarian qualified in fourth position and made a lightning start, but caught behind Hugo Valente’s Chevrolet which bogged down on the grid, the Honda driver was clipped as he tried to pass on the right side of the Frenchman.

“(After the contact) I was on the inside of Sébastien Loeb, but it was very difficult to judge if there was any damage to my steering,” said Michelisz to TouringCarTimes. “If I wasn’t afraid of a broken car, I’d have had the confidence for a late braking move in the first turn and tried for second place.

“I think the performance was there to be close to Sébastien, but we were not managing the gap right for the last long straight, so I’m not sure if I could have held him to the end.”

This was the Hungarian’s first race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, where he was the Honda driver with the most pace throughout the weekend, and despite a scare in testing on Thursday when a tyre punctured and nearly sent him into the wall, he fully enjoyed his first event at “The Green Hell.”

“I knew that it was going to be a huge challenge to survive, I was very lucky in FP0, but luckily it didn’t really have an effect on my driving,” he said.

“I was able to get the confidence for qualifying and for the first race. Of course the contact in the second race was bad luck as everyone was quite close to each other and I was on the wrong end of it. I was sorry about that as after the start I had the momentum to be fourth of fifth.”

Michelisz now has 57 points in independents’ points standings and is now three points ahead of Bennani with ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton dropping to third after being unable to start race two due to a broken radiator.