Fears Gianni Morbidelli’s car may not be repairable for Singapore

Gianni Morbidelli fears the damage to his Honda Civic TCR may not be repairable before the next race weekend in Singapore with the cars set to travel directly from Thailand by freight, giving the team little time to repair the front-end damage he sustained in a crash in Race 2.

The Italian had finished third in the first race behind the two Craft-Bamboo Racing SEATs of Pepe Oriola and James Nash, and looked all set for another podium in Race 2 after launching from ninth to fourth on the first lap, before he lost control of the car on the exit of Turn 8, spinning across to the inside of the circuit and crashing into the barriers nose-first.

“I don’t know what to say, I’d been through that corner 20 times that weekend or more,” said Morbidelli to TouringCarTimes. “I must be unlucky to have taken that carpet the wrong way, I have no idea. The speed (at the corner) was exactly as before in Race 1, so it’s not because I was much quicker or did something, I just touched the carpet enough to lose control of the car and I couldn’t do anything.

“I’m pissed off as I did a very great start. I passed (Sergey) Afanasyev and then (Dusan) Borkovic and I was already up to fourth after four corners from ninth on the grid.”

Looking ahead to the next round at Singapore, where Morbidelli is still mathematically in contention for the title, 54 points behind James Nash, he’s not confident the car will even be able to race.

“Let’s see first what happens with the car,” he said. “They don’t know yet if they can repair the car, or need to change the shell.”

The team admit the challenge of repairing Morbidelli’s car with the short turnaround time at the Singapore circuit is a daunting one.

“The most difficult thing is what do we do now, as it’s heavily damaged,” said team manager James Nixon to TouringCarTImes. “We could probably fix it, but it has to be done at Singapore in the paddock.”