Norbert Michelisz’s daughter is born as his team takes to the track

Norbert Michelisz has celebrated the birth of his daughter, who was born as his new race team project, M1RA, took to the track on Friday in Georgia – with the team putting both cars in the top five in its first qualifying session.

The WTCC star’s daughter was born during the two-hour test session on Friday. Her name was already the inspiration for the team’s name, as he and his wife have named her Mira.

The M1RA race team topped the second free practice session early on Saturday afternoon, with 17-year-old Attila Tassi setting the pace, before Tassi and 48-year-old Roberto Colciago qualified in second and fifth position respectively for the first race weekend of the season, a strong result first time out for the Honda squad.

“I’m really, really proud for all my guys who’ve helped during the winter to put this together,” said team principal Dávid Bári to TouringCarTimes.

“When you feel in the winter that you are in a hard situation and you want to pull all the best people around you, and the atmosphere we have here is really good. We have Giancarlo (Bruno), Gergõ (Bári), my brother, and other guys I’ve worked with for a lot of years. I want to thank Norbert also, as he’s been a very important part of this team.”

“Our goal before this event was just to arrive here and not make any mistakes, that was our only goal, and if you don’t make mistakes it means you get the best results.

“So our target tomorrow is to also not to make any mistakes. We’ll see the data when we get the cars back, and see the lap times of our drivers, as they’re a great combination – completely different but they can work together very well.”