Gianni Morbidelli expecting to fight at the front in Valencia

Gianni Morbidelli goes into the first European event of the season in the lead of the championship, 2 points ahead of rival Stefano Comini and his Target Competition SEAT León Racer.

TouringCarTimes met up with the WestCoast Racing driver, to discuss several issues such as the ballast awarded to the Honda Civic TCRs for their gearbox, as well as the outlook of the championship.

“I think consistency will be the key,” said the former Grand Prix driver. “We need to be careful not to lose any points along the way, because it’s along championship and it is important not to score a zero, as it is so closely fought you can pay the price of a DNF very easily. That’s why we will need to work on the reliability of the car, we’ve been lucky in a few circumstances and we can’t rely on that luck.”

Morbidelli played down the importance of the fastest lap he scored today, focusing more on the good feelings he had after some tweaks applied to the Civic TCR despite the impressive pace shown in China:”The fastest lap I did today doesn’t count very much, it depends a lot on the configuration people have lapped in. What I’m happy with is that we were able to complete a lot of laps and verify the performance gains brought by some changes we made on the car compared to Shanghai.”

The Italian expects to fight at the front of the field, but insisted he does not expect to have an easy life come Saturday:”We are not expecting an easy day tomorrow. On this track the gaps are normally very close, which means I will have to be careful not to make any mistakes in the most important laps of the weekend. On the other hand, I think we are close to the front and it would be a negative surprise if we slipped back from where we are.”

The WestCoast Racing driver touched on the ballast issues, saying they affect the balance of the car dramatically:”With the success ballast and the extra 35 kilos for the gearbox I am carrying a passenger in my car. I have to say I don’t know how the ballast for the gearbox was calculated, and to be honest I don’t think too much about these things. It’s someone else’s job to make decisions about this, I respect the rules and act accordingly. I’ve never driven a SEAT, so I have no idea. What I know is that I have this extra person next to me, and I have to treat the passenger in a very sensible way not to upset him!”.

Despite being uncomfortable with the outcome of the decisions taken by the officials, Morbidelli did not criticize them, as he feels it is part of the game:”Like I said, the Balance of Performance is part of the set of rules governing this championship, and this is also a tendency of the sport in general. We knew from the beginning these would be the rules and we need to react to them, not to criticize when it hurts us rather than other people. To be honest it changes a lot on the car, it modifies the handling, but also the way the tyres and brakes tend to wear out during the sessions.

“At the Ricardo Tormo in particular, there are a lot of accelerations and braking zones, which make the ballast even more able to influence the performances of the car. I will have to react, like I said, and we will try to make sure these penalties will not hit us too hard. I hope – and believe – that the officials will look at the situations in an objective way, so if it’s too hard on us they will be able to look back.”

The first official session will start tomorrow at 10:00 local time, with Free Practice 1.