Norbert Michelisz disappointed with MAC3 crash

Norbert Michelisz narrowly missed out on pole position in qualifying at Marrakech, Morocco. The Honda driver believes he could have achieved pole position, but he was too cautious and failed to manage the advantage he had built over eventual pole sitter Rob Huff.

“I think the car had potential for more, I have to say I was a bit too cautious in the last sector,” admitted the Hungarian. “I knew Rob (Huff)’s split time and when I saw mine I braked a bit too early for Turn 11 and at that point I had no space to make up for that, the lap was over.”

Despite the setback, Michelisz takes the positives of a great team result: “I don’t think it matters a lot who was on pole position, of course I would have liked to score it myself, but to be honest the team’s 1-2-3 is more important to that respect. I am proud to be part of this thing and I have the feeling that all the work we did in the past two years paid off, and it’s amazing. I would like to thank all the team for their work.”

Although Honda team principal Alessandro Mariani talked about a general setup issue, Michelisz took most of the blame for the MAC3 incident which saw him clip the wall in the final sector of the second lap.

“I want to thank Alessandro for defending me, but to be honest that corner can easily be done flat out. I was surprised I was not able to do so in the second lap, because the lap before I had done it normally. I did not expect such a strong understeer and by that time it was too late to react and I clipped the wall. We have to analyse why that happened, but it could be because I pushed a bit too much on the first lap and didn’t have the grip in the second. It’s a shame because we know it would have been so easy to win MAC3 and it was all down to me, so apologies to the team because they worked really hard.”

The four points collected today in qualifying mean Michelisz is now fifth in the championship, ahead of Citroën’s Yvan Muller.