Gianni Morbidelli expects tough second race despite pole

Münnich Motorsport’s Gianni Morbidelli expects the second race at Spa-Francorchamps will be a tough fight, in comparison to Hungary where he took victory from second on the grid, due to the nature of the circuit and the struggles the team has had throughout practice and qualifying.

The Italian has qualified in tenth position, but admits it was not a strategic move, and was simply the best performance possible from the car.

“You must consider all the time that P10 means that you are only able to get to tenth and not P1, so to start in pole position for the second race is a bonus, but my performance is not enough to compete for the top,” said Morbidelli to TouringCarTimes.

“We’re struggling a lot with understeer since yesterday and we’re not able to solve the problem. We feel the problem’s increasing and the car is really difficult to drive. Charles (Hodge, my engineer) and I are trying to change everything, we’re trying to do our best, but there’s such a short time to make changes.

“Tenth was the maximum that I could do today, and the performance was not any better than that since yesterday, so we hope to try and do something different for the first race tomorrow.”

Morbidelli starts from provisional pole position for race two, ahead of the Proteam Racing-run Honda Civic of Mehdi Bennani, with the top Citroën set to be José María López in eighth, but believes unlike Hungary, where he was able to hold off the works Honda of Tiago Monteiro until the end, it’ll be harder to accomplish the same feat, so far the only non-Citroën win of the season.

“It’s a different track to Hungary, it’s more easy to overtake if you’re faster than the other car, especially after the long straight here. Hungary it’s much more difficult, plus the difference of performance here is quite big, not only to the Citroën, but also I’m surprised about (Hugo) Valente, who’s quite quick even in the same car, so we’ve probably not got the set-up right.”