Photo:

Néstor Girolami hails “fantastic” Volvo after securing front row in Morocco

By

Néstor Girolami emerged as the surprise foil to Honda in qualifying in Marrakech, with the 27-year-old Argentinian splitting the two Hondas of Tiago Monteiro and Norbert Michelisz in the top five qualifying shootout.

Girolami strung together a pair of 1:22.0s in Qualifying 2 and the Qualifying 3 shootout to take the challenge to Honda on arguably their best circuit on the calendar.

“I’m very happy and grateful to the team, they gave me a fantastic car – we also won the first MAC3 for Volvo, so I’m very proud,” said Girolami to TouringCarTimes.

Despite never having raced at the Moroccan circuit before, Girolami explained his gradual approach throughout the weekend to tackling the track, with helpful guidance from the team’s development driver Yvan Muller.

“This track is completely different to a track like Monza or Budapest,” explained Girolami. “You need to build your confidence slowly step-by-step, else you can have a small crash and lose your confidence.

“Honda here last year was very competitive while Volvo didn’t do a great job here last year, but we’ve worked a lot in the winter, and Yvan Muller has a lot of experience at street circuits and he gave me a lot of feedback after FP2 and I’m really grateful to him, as otherwise it’d have been very difficult to have got this result. “