Stefano Comini: “Catching Honda will be impossible”

Stefano Comini will start second, alongside Gianni Morbidelli’s Honda Civic TCR, in the first race of the day at Monza, Italy. The Target Competition driver managed to clock his lap time in the closing stages of the session, also thanks to team-mate Andrea Belicchi’s slipstream.

“We are the first of the ‘normal’ cars,” said Comini referring to the almighty Civic TCR. “I am happy, it was a perfect result. I think my team-mates and I did a perfect job, because the slipstreaming tactics worked really well, so I have to thank Andrea (Belicchi) and Michel (Nykjaer), because it all worked perfectly for me.”

The Swiss driver made a small mistake in his first run, as his SEAT León Racer was quite nervous on the entry of Parabolica, which ruined his first lap. Comini explained. “We chose me to be at the back of the queue to start with because I have a more aggressive driving style, which allows me to warm up the tyres before my team-mates. Unfortunately they were still a bit too cold, so I made a mistake at Parabolica and lost my first lap. I was able to put in a good performance in the second effort, though, so I am really happy, this is perfect, as much as we could have done.”

Talking about tomorrow’s race, Comini is under no illusion he can overtake Morbidelli and win the race. “I think it will be impossible to catch Gianni (Morbidelli), but I will try as hard as I can. For me, though, the target is to finish ahead of Pepe Oriola for the championship, so I have achieved that so far.”

Comini leads the championship with 121 points, 16 more than Pepe Oriola, courtesy of the four collected for his second place on the grid.