Michelisz top placed independent challenger at Macau

Zengõ Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz is the top placed of the Yokohama independents’ trophy competitors for race one, but that reverses around for race two, with rival Pepe Oriola starting second in his SUNRED SEAT León.

Michelisz has qualified seventh on the grid for the first race of the day, one spot behind Darryl O’Young who’s grabbed the bonus point for the independents’ class pole, but isn’t in contention for the trophy.

Michelisz is also the best placed of the BMW drivers, though has Morrocco’s Mehdi Bennani just one space behind him on the grid, which will be one spot ahead of him when the grid is reversed for race two.

“Before the weekend we knew that this was going to be a difficult one,” said Michelisz to TouringCarTimes. “Performance wise this is not the best circuit for us, you can see our qualifying pace was two seconds slower than pole position, which is never a good feeling. I don’t care which position I am, even if I was second if pole position is two seconds away it’s not a nice feeling.”

Although Michelisz starts behind his independent rival Oriola for race two, Michelisz is aware of the disadvantage that will befall Oriola’s front-wheel drive SEAT when the race starts compared to the two BMWs on row two, saying “It shouldn’t be a problem with the standing start.”

Michelisz took his first overall WTCC victory at Macau two years ago, then in the front-wheel drive SEAT León TDI, starting from pole position for the reversed grid race, and won the 2010 WTCC Rookie Challenge, reserved for championship newcomers and more specifically the diesel SEATs, which were ruled out of the independents’ championship in that season.

“I like the circuit very much, last year we had some really bad luck in qualifying, it was one of my worst weekends last year, so I have some really good memories and some bad ones.”

Michelisz leads Pepe Oriola by 12 points and Stefano D’Aste, who starts 11th for both races, by 16 points heading into the final race, where 42 points are available thanks to double points in the independents’ trophy. Michelisz heads to Macau coming off of a bad weekend in Shanghai, where he only picked up two points, given a drive through penalty in race one and then suffering a puncture in race two after a coming together with Alex MacDowall’s Chevrolet.

“For me, it was like a typical rolling start incident,” said Michelisz reflecting on the accident with Yvan Muller. “I tried to leave some space on the right side as the last thing I saw was Colin (Turkington) diving up the inside, and I had to focus ahead, but I wanted to leave him some space, but I think the problem was Yvan fell back to third and he wanted to get a good run into the left hander. I think I could have been more on the right-hand side, and he could have been more on the left-hand side of the circuit, but I don’t think there’s much I could do in this situation. ”