Nicky Catsburg rues qualifying mistake, but pleased with Volvo’s pace in Morocco

Polestar Cyan Racing driver Nicky Catsburg believes he lost a chance to make it into the top five shootout along with team-mate Néstor Girolami following a mistake in Qualifying 2, when he hit the barriers at Turn 11.

“Personally, I should have done better,” said Catsburg to TouringCarTimes. “I was P2 in Q1 and I thought the car is handling well. It’s not hard to be consistent to do a good lap, but then in Q2 I was on a good lap and I was a bit faster than Q1, but then I locked a rear into Turn 11 and hit the wall softly, but that messed up the rest of my qualifying.”

The session was red flagged while Catsburg recovered himself to the pits, and he’d go on to qualify in sixth position.

“I took new tyres, messed up Turn 1, Turn 3 and the same corner where I did the spin before and so I was surprised I even did P6 with it,” he explained. “If I hadn’t hit the wall as we could have been in Q3, but we should be super-happy, as if we can be fast here, we can be fast everywhere.

“I was expecting for us to struggle here as it’s generally a Honda circuit, but to see us now in second with ‘Bebu’, me sixth with my mistakes, and us beating Honda in MAC3 who have one year of experience, I think it’s a dream start, and we should take it from there and score some good points tomorrow.”

With Volvo winning MAC3 and the 12 points that come with it, and with Girolami and Catsburg picking up six points in qualifying, the Swedish manufacturer now lead the manufacturers’ standings on 18 points, two ahead of Honda.