Gabriele Tarquini: “We’ve lost the one advantage we had on Citroën”

Gabriele Tarquini says that Honda has lost their standing start advantage to Citroën after the French manufacturer showed a marked improvement in this area over the last few races, but bemoans the lack of top speed as the main downfall of Honda at present.

The Italian secured fourth in the second race from second on the grid, after being unable to hold off the charging Citroën trio of Sébastien Loeb, José María López and Yvan Muller, and has now moved up to fifth in the drivers’ standings, 12 points behind team-mate Tiago Monteiro and ten points clear of the privateer Honda of Norbert Michelisz.

“Last year there was one point we were strong than Citroën was the standing start, and now they’ve overtaken us,” said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes.

“I was surprised how many positions they recovered on the standing start and I realised immediately it was almost impossible to finish on the podium. I tried really hard in the first few laps, especially against (Sébastien) Loeb, but it was impossible to keep my position. The acceleration on the main straight and our top speeds were very different, so I decided to let them pass and save fourth position as if I fought hard with them I’d probably lose fourth. It’d be stupid as I have no chance to fight with them.”

Honda are continuing to bring upgrades to the Civic throughout the season, which the 2009 champion says will hopefully allow them to close back the gap after their toughest weekend of the season so far. With the Hondas over a second off the pace of Citroën in Slovakia, the Japanese manufacturer is set to lose some of its 60kg of compensation weight before Paul Ricard next weekend.

“We must improve in other areas, such as acceleration and top speed,” said Tarquini. “As we can’t compete as soon as the tracks have long straights like this. We lost one second in the first sector to Chevrolet, Lada and Citroën, but were really close in the second sector – but without top speed it’s impossible to fight with them, but this is the situation. Hopefully we’ll be lighter in the next race, and we will keep working to improve.”