Roberto Colciago on pole despite new car and track in Sepang

Newly-crowned TCR Italy champion Roberto Colciago took a rather unexpected pole position at the wheel of his Target Competition Honda Civic TCR at Sepang, Malaysia.

Although the Italian has won his national championship driving a Honda, it was in last year’s specification, meaning he had to re-learn the car as well as the track, which he had never seen before.

“I had never seen the track before I arrived here yesterday,” said the former STCC champion. “The timetable is very tight with only one Practice session and I didn’t know the car, so it was a very good result. I must thank Target Competition, JAS Motorsport and the mechanics for doing such a good job.”

Colciago conceded he was far off the pace in free practice, but that was due to him taking his time to learn the track: “Yesterday, I spent the first part of the Practice learning the track and so I was a long way off going fast. We thought we had a problem with the front of the car so we fixed that and I learnt the track and so we are very happy with the result.”

Roberto Colciago is the ninth different pole sitter in ten races.