Michel Nykjaer satisfied with weekend despite harsh qualifying penalty
Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjaer is satisfied with his weekend at the Sonoma Raceway, despite dropping to third in the drivers’ standings after being forced to start from the back of the grid after a bizarre technical infringement, which the team had tried in vain to protest against on race day morning.
The Danish driver, along with the two Campos Racing SEATs of Hugo Valente and Fernando Monje, had their qualifying times disallowed after it was found that the position of the seat in their cars didn’t comply with the Championship’s technical regulations, which stated that the rearmost limit of the drivers’ shoulders must not be any further back than the placement of the original seat of the production model of the car.
Michel Nykjaer went on to finish in 12th in race one and 17th in race two, scoring no points in the overall standings in the USA and has therefore fallen behind the Honda of Gabriele Tarquini following the Italian’s win in race two. Nykjaer also shares the lead of the Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy with chief rival James Nash, after scoring five points in the classification against Nash’s 14.
“Of course we were leading with nine points so it’s a little disappointing, whilst in the overall championship it’s worse, we’re behind Gabriele by 19,” said Nykjaer to TouringCarTimes.
“It was a good (first) race, but I had a big hit and we couldn’t fix it for the second race so I had a lot of understeer,” he added.
“We’re still going for the top two or three in the World Championship, but if Yvan (Muller) wins the championship next weekend he may help (Tom) Chilton, and maybe Tiago (Monteiro) and Gabriele (Tarquini) will help each other. So we’ll do our own way and hopefully win at least one more race this year and see where we are, and of course we hope to win the independents’.”
The team had decided to question the interpretation of the regulations made the previous evening by the stewards, but this protest wasn’t accepted as it hadn’t been argued in original deliberations on Saturday, and the team along with Campos Racing had already waived their right of appeal.
“When we read the rule again we understood that it’s not clear in the regulation how to measure this,” said team principal Nicklas Karlsson to TouringCarTimes, “and that is what we appealed against. It was more a question to the FIA, as in the regulation is says you need to measure against the drivers’ shoulders, and the driver wasn’t in the car.”
The Swedish team now heads to the final three rounds of the Championship in Asia where it aims to win the Yokohama Drivers’ Title in its first full season in the WTCC. The team also is evaluating a few options to field a second driver in its second Chevrolet Cruze at Shanghai and Macau.
WTCC Yokohama Drivers’ Trophy Standings after Race of USA
