Photo: Castrol Honda WTC

Gabriele, hopefully not ready to retire yet

The surprise news ahead of 2016 is here, Honda have confirmed that Gabriele Tarquini will not be behind the wheel of one of their Civic WTCCs in the 2016 World Touring Car Championship season.

On the one hand, it’s good to see them making a shake-up in their driver line-up. Of course in Hungary, no doubt there’s not too wild speculation that Norbert Michelisz could now finally be able to make the move from privateer to factory driver, a move that’s long overdue if it does happen.

But on the other side, it would definitely be a shame to see Gabriele stop racing, a driver who has his critics, but just based on his 2015 season alone, and based on his own comments in Qatar just a few weeks’ ago, he still wants to race, and I still want to see him race.

Two years ago, I wasn’t as sure. At the end of 2013, despite finishing second in the standings, the Italian had taken a few knocks with a very memorable crash at Hungary which saw him hospitalised along with the WTCC’s oldest driver at the time, Franz Engstler.

Tarquini was then caught up in a crash during the first race of the new TC1 era in Marrakech, harmlessly sliding off track before he was collected by the Chevrolet of Gianni Morbidelli, with Tarquini’s Honda written off and a new car built for him a week later.

In the first year of TC1, it seemed even his fellow Honda drivers had the upper hand on him. Tiago Monteiro seemed more at home with the high-aero TC1 specification Civic, while Norbert Michelisz continued to shine in the privateer Zengo Motorsport-run car, beating both factory Hondas in the championship.

Gabriele scored a win in the second race at Suzuka near the end of the year, and then a podium in race one in Macau before missing the second race due to exhaustion, relinquishing any chance of overhauling his Portuguese team-mate in the standings, and missed the evening’s festivities.

This year however, after turning 53 just before the season’s start in Argentina, there’s no doubting the skill on display from the Italian touring car star, putting all the fears of the previous two years to bed.

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The JAS Motorsport developed Civic hadn’t made up as much of the gap to the all-conquering Citroëns as hoped, but the Italian driver put on a great fight in every race weekend, picking up his first podium of the season in Russia.

His rivals were more vocal about his driving this year, with Rob Huff, Tom Chilton and Hugo Valente all among the loudest to decry his on-track behaviour, but as they say, if everyone’s complaining about you, you must be doing something right.

Gabriele didn’t like being picked up by his rivals; as Chilton vented frustration with him after a crash in practice at Vila Real, this only served to agitate him, and we saw the same anger again when Hugo Valente, 30 years his junior, challenged him while he was on his way to the podium China.

A long standing record was to fall in 2015. Gabriele had won a race in every season since the birth of the new era of the WTCC in 2005, but he still ended up ahead of both of the other full-time Honda drivers in the points standings with consistency being his trump card.

Honda team-mate Tiago Monteiro picked up two reverse grid race wins, but Gabriele seemed to be more focussed on taking the fight directly to Citroën, often not making the strategic play in qualifying, and during the later races in the year in Japan, China and Thailand, he did just that.

Gabriele’s fight with José María López in the closing stages of the second race in Shanghai, China was nothing short of amazing. With just 20kg of ballast working in his favour, while López had the almighty C-Elysée WTCC at his disposal, Gabriele was able to put his Honda Civic right where he needed to, and made sure he stayed ahead of the double world champion to claim the silverware for second on the podium; if only he’d been able to do the same when his good friend Yvan Muller had caught him earlier, that enviable record of a win in every season record could still be his.

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With Honda edging ever closer to Citroën, it’ll be a shame to not see the Italian not able to challenge Citroën drivers José María López and Yvan Muller for one more year, but as he vows to find a way to race in 2016, and as Honda look also for him to be a part of their extended touring car programme, there are doors open to see him race in the British Touring Car Championship, the China Touring Car Championship, or maybe and more likely the new TCR International Series next year.

With Tarquini ticking all the boxes of a perfect race car driver; a great development driver, fast, and great racer, it’s probably not the last we’ll see of him behind the wheel just yet.