Norbert Michelisz confident after good start of the weekend

Norbert Michelisz was third in today’s testing at Marrakech, Morocco. The Hungarian is not getting carried away with the pace the Hondas were able to keep, but remains positive for the rest of the weekend.

“It’s difficult to say (where we are at the moment)”, said the Hungarian to TouringCarTimes. “The tendency is that we are quite strong on Friday but the important thing is to keep this momentum until the end of qualifying. I know it’s not easy, but it’s going a bit better than we expected. Looking at the lap times we have three cars in the top four, although we had the same in Hungary. It’s still early days, but I have to say that looking at the layout of the track we knew that it would probably be the best circuit for us, with slow corners and no long straights. I have to say I’m confident for the rest of the weekend.”

With a weight difference of 40 kgs between the Civic and the Citroën C-Elysées, tyre degradation might have a smaller impact during the races due to the nature of the track. Michelisz is however not sure how the tyres will react on Sunday: “Actually I’m not sure this track is gentle on the tyres, because looking at the tarmac you have some parts with a new asphalt, which is quite aggressive and you can feel the grip there, so I’m not sure. I don’t want to hide information, I really don’t know what to expect, I don’t know if the ballast will be more or less effective compared to the last few outings we had.”

The track’s new layout seems to make overtaking more difficult, but when asked if that would influence the Honda drivers’ chances to pass the Citroëns the Hungarian is not sure the French manufacturer’s cars will be ahead of the Civics: “Let’s wait and see if they are in front or not, honestly I don’t think it will be possible to overtake a car that has a similar pace to us.”