Honda blame compensation weight for lack of performance in Slovakia

onda endured their most difficult qualifying of the season at a track which was one of their strongest just two years ago, with Gabriele Tarquini qualifying ninth, and the other three cars of Norbert Michelisz, Tiago Monteiro and Néstor Girolami failing to get out of Q1.

The team are carrying 60kg of compensation weight, the same as Citroën this weekend which have carried full ballast all season so far, after recent single-lap performances of the Honda Civic have averaged just three-tenths of a second off the pace in recent races.

In Slovakia however, the fastest lap from the Hondas was Gabriele Tarquini’s 2:05.286, compared to Yvan Muller’s pole lap of 2:03.736, was 1.5 seconds off the pace.

“It was a very difficult qualifying for all of us,” said Tarquini. “Our car is clearly not happy with the 60kgs. I can really feel it. The balance of the car is quite good, but we realised it would be very difficult to get into top five. I decided to go immediately with new tyres in the first few minutes to do my best and it was enough to stay in the top ten.”

Both Norbert Michelisz and Tiago Monteiro were bemused as to why they failed to make the top 12, with just the overall pace of the car with the 60kg believed to be the cause.

“It’s obviously very disappointing to qualify 17th for both races, especially because I had a nice balance with the car,” said Monteiro. “From the practice sessions I felt we were progressing but today the pace wasn’t there.”

Independents’ class points leader Norbert Michelisz echoed the factory drivers’ thoughts.

“It was a little surprising when I received the message that I was 13th because my two timed runs felt actually quite good. We need to analyse and find the reasons why we couldn’t progress.”

JAS Motorsport Managing Director Alessandro Mariani added:

“Carrying this extra weight was never going to help us but we found a very good balance in the handling and we have improved the performance in certain parts of the track from last year. I was expecting we would have three cars in the top ten so I am disappointed and surprised at the gap between Gabriele and the other Honda drivers.”