Stefano Comini blasts Honda balance following qualifying
Target Competition’s Stefano Comini seemed set to secure his first pole position of the season, before the two WestCoast Racing Hondas stole this thunder in the final moments of qualifying at the Salzburgring, demoting the Swiss to third on the grid shortly after the chequered flag flew.
The former points leader stressed his disappointment at the performance of the Honda, focussing on the weight difference in particular between Gianni Morbidelli’s Honda Civic TCR and Comini’s own SEAT León Racer, which this weekend is 65kg, made up of 30kg of success ballast for the Italian following his double-victory last week at Monza, and 35kg as Balance of Performance for the car’s gearbox.
“They are playing every time, they’ve been doing this since the beginning of the season,” said Comini to TouringCarTimes. “In Free Practice 1, Free Practice 2, where was Honda? And now, straight to the front, when (Morbidelli) is running 65kg more than me.
“They say 50kg is worth about half a second; is Morbidelli really over a half a second faster than all of the drivers here? Because if this true, I’ll take off my helmet right now and finish racing.”
“In qualifying we did a great job,” he added. “Thanks to my team-mates (Michel Nykjaer and Andrew Belicchi), just as in Monza, I had a good lap with a slipstream. In half of Q2 I tried to help Michel (Nykjaer), so only on two of my runs did I have a slipstream, and that was a two-car slipstream.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s races, where he’ll start third on the grid on the first race, on whether he expected to not be able to battle the Hondas after their qualifying pace, the Swiss driver stated: “I’ll battle like I do every time, no more no less.”
On Comini’s take on the performance gap of the Honda, Morbidelli simply quipped: “I could do a 1:25.2, but I’ll keep it in my pocket for next year,” refusing to engage with his title rival on his comments.
