Gabriele Tarquini disappointed with performance gap at Spa

After a strong weekend where the Castrol Honda World Touring Car team were fighting Citroën for the podium two weeks ago at Moscow, Honda’s Gabriele is disappointed that the team are now on the back foot at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, after qualifying fifth, 1.1 seconds behind pole-sitter Yvan Muller.

The Italian was able to break into the third and final part of qualifying, while Tiago Monteiro had qualified in sixth position, which will become 11th for race one after he takes his five-place grid drop earned at Moscow for contact with ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton.

However, in Q3, Tarquini was unable to threaten the three Citroëns of Yvan Muller, Sébastien Loeb and Hugo Valente, and was also surpassed by Campos Racing’s Chevrolet, who was by far the quickest of the privateer Chevrolet RML contingent in qualifying.

“For sure I’m not happy to be more than one second behind the Citroën, but the characteristics of this track don’t suit our car’s performance very well,” said Tarquini.

“We lack a little bit of speed, and at this track the top speed is very important, especially in the first sector, and 80% of the gap comes from the first sector. The car is quite competitive in the middle section, where we are not far away from Citroën and we are faster than the Chevys.

“(Looking back at) the last race’s performance I was much more happy, as I was second on the grid, very close to López and in front of the other Citroëns, but we must work and improve. We are focussed on the summer tests to develop the car and the engine, we must spend a lot of time during summer to improve our performance.”