Mehdi Bennani sorry to miss indies title after near perfect weekend

Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani missed out on winning the WTCC’s independents’ title for the first time at Qatar by just four points to Zengő’s Norbert Michelisz, but is happy after finishing the season on a high with second overall in race one.

The Moroccan driver won the independents’ classification in race one, but third in the reversed grid race two behind Michelisz and the Campos Chevrolet of Hugo Valente means he missed out on his first title in the only privateer Citroën in the field.

“All the year I was fighting and I missed the title by four points, but this weekend I didn’t do any mistakes. We had a near perfect weekend,” said Bennani to TouringCarTimes.

“I know of course also that Norbi (Michelisz) is a very quick driver. He was quick all weekend and when he was close to getting into Q3 I was thinking it was going to be very difficult, but we have to see the positives, we are eighth in the overall championship and second in the independents’, so in the end it’s not bad.”