Norbert Michelisz looking ahead to 2011 challenge

Hungarian driver Norbert Michelisz heads into his second season of the World Touring Car Championship this year after winning the Rookie Challenge category in 2010. We spoke to him about his season’s goals, his preparation for rear-wheel drive and the prospect of a home race at the Hungaroring.

TcT: How are the season’s preparations going, have you seen or been able to test the new car yet?

“I’ve seen the car, but the engine is still not ready. The car will be ready and built completely at the beginning of April. Then we can take the car, as right now it’s at RBM, and then it’s up to us. Now there will be a little bit of a difficultly as our original plan was maybe to go for a few days to the Hungaroring, but now it seems…well, our plan is to go three days testing, we don’t know when, we don’t know where.”

TcT: So far in your career you’ve only driven Suzukis, Renaults and SEATs, all front-wheel drive cars. How quickly do you think you will be able to adapt to the change to a rear-wheel drive BMW?

“To be honest, I don’t know, because I’ve never ever driven a rear-wheel driven car before, so for sure it will be interesting. Right now, for the last two months I’ve been sitting in front of the PC and training with the BMW, but obviously to go out on the real track it will be completely different.”

“The last year I was driving a turbo engine, so I don’t think the biggest problem will be the engine or the characteristics of the engine, I think I will need a few days or a few weekends until I get the feel of the BMW.”

TcT: How did you think watching last weekend’s race that things went, you must be looking forward to racing the BMW with it being able to race so close to Chevrolet?

“I was expecting a little more from the BMWs but I was taking a look at the top speed data and you could see that the BMW was always fastest in every speed trap, so I don’t think BMW has a problem with the engine. I think the car is absolutely competitive.”

“I was expecting a little bit more tyre degradation from the Chevrolets, but I I saw the lap times and Huff and Muller could do lap times in the first race within three tenths, so it’s a big worry for me as it seems they’ve found a really good solution for the tyre degradation.”

“I was hoping that with the BMW you’d have the advantage in the second half of the race. I don’t know what happened to the SEATs, but they found more than one second from somewhere. I was not expecting the SEATs to be within one second off the Chevrolets.”

TcT: After winning the rookies title last year, presumably your goal is to go for the independents’ title?

“It’s a bit difficult for us doing one race less than the others. I think our goal is to finish as often as possible on the podium.”

“Obviously the main goal is to win the independents’ trophy, but I will be happy if we can be competitive and finish often on the podium…It will be perfect to win the independents’ trophy or to finish within the top five in the points standings, but I know it will be difficult.”

TcT: Last year your name featured along a great list: Yvan Muller, Rob Huff, Tiago Monteiro, Andy Priaulx and Gabriele Tarquini as a driver who took an overall race victory in the season. Do you think you can do that again?

“I think in terms of competitiveness of the car, for sure the car can win races. Tom Coronel showed in the second race that it almost happened, and I think we are going to get a car which will be absolutely competitive as RBM is a team which will prepare the car 100%.”

TcT: Also, as you’ve already alluded to, there’s a rumour circulating that the Marrakech round will be replaced by an event at your home circuit in Hungary. What are you feelings about that if it turns out to be true?

“I’m really hoping to race on the Hungarorong, and we have a lot of fans here in Hungary who would like to watch the races, and it’d be a big opportunity for us to have a race back home in front of the home audience.”

“For the driver it’s the dream, and if you have a competitive car it’s the second part of the dream because I think if we’re going to race at the Hungaroroing, for sure the BMW will have the pace, so a dream scenario.”