Gabriele Tarquini happy with two top tens after bad qualifying

Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini wrestled his Civic WTCC into the top ten in both of today’s races at Paul Ricard, going from 14th to fifth in the second race and is now just four points away from fourth overall in the drivers’ standings as a result.

The Italian qualified down in 14th after bad luck in qualifying, but was able to pick his way through the order to finish eighth in race one behind team-mate Tiago Monteiro, and made it all the way through to fifth in race two behind the Citroën of Yvan Muller.

“It was the maximum as when you start at the back and you don’t through Q1 it’s always very difficult,” said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes. “Especially in our car as the acceleration and top speed isn’t fantastic, so recovering positions is always very difficult. But in the second race my pace was quite good, and when I overtook all the Chevrolets and Ladas there was a big gap to the Citroëns so it was stupid to continue to push.”

After struggling in qualifying, all the Hondas showed good pace in the races today, with Norbert Michelisz finishing second in race two and with Tiago Monteiro holding off López for six laps until their coming together on lap seven.

“The race pace is always better than qualifying,” added Tarquini. “In qualifying we struggle a little bit, and I had some trouble yesterday with traffic, on both of my new sets of tyres I found traffic, but for us we were very close to being in the top ten.”

Honda lost 20kg of ballast this weekend in adjusted compensation weight, but the 2009 champion things it’s more the nature of the track that seemed to suit the Civic compared to last week’s troubles at the Slovakiaring.

“I don’t think the 20kg has made the difference, I think it’s the track. But in Bratislava the car was very good in the races, our pace was very good, we just need to improve top speed and acceleration. When I was fighting with Lada it’s clear that our chassis is much better than their chassis.”