Honda drivers: “We are getting closer to Citroën”

Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini qualified fourth and fifth for the third meeting of the 2014 FIA World Touring Car Championship, with Monteiro just five-hundredths of a second behind Loeb’s Citroën C-ELysée, and a mistake from Tarquini costing the Italian a sure-fire place in the top three.

At a weekend where it looked like Citroën’s dominance could be broken, thanks in part to the compensation weight which have come into effect from this weekend, Honda looked strong with the independent drivers also featuring at the top of the time sheets, with Mehdi Bennani qualifying sixth in his Proteam-run Honda, and Norbert Michelisz fast in Q1, before a steering problem put him out in Q2.

Monteiro, who starts fourth for the first race tomorrow, says the leap forward is a mixture of factors.

“Obviously, it’s not a secret, the 60kg helped, but every little update we’ve had in the last ten days has also helped. I can’t tell you how much is one or the other, but the overall package is helping us to move forward,” he said to TouringCarTimes.

“When you look at the time in my first sector, it wasn’t brilliant, so I think we should have been ahead of at least one Citroën, I think that was doable…it’s a nice step up compared to the first races, and I think we showed everybody that we are getting closer.”

Team-mate Gabriele Tarquini, who was fastest in the second part of qualifying, but made an error on his single-lap run in Q3, echoed the sentiment.

“I had a small problem with a misfire in qualifying, but I’m quite happy about the balance of the car,” he said. “All four Honda cars were a little bit closer to Citroën than in the previous race. Yes, the 60kg helps, but don’t forget they spent six days testing here while we were just discovering this track with this car only yesterday, and during a weekend you don’t get to test many things because you must focus on qualifying and the race first of all.”