Gianni Morbidelli retains faith in WestCoast despite tough start

WestCoast Racing made the switch from Honda machinery to Volkswagen this winter. The Swedish team kept its star driver, Gianni Morbidelli, adding Italian teenager Giacomo Altoé to form their driver line-up.

Despite high expectations ahead of the season, the team struggled to get to grips with the new-for-them machinery, resulting in just 16 points scored in the first two events, with Morbidelli 12th in the championship, 42 points off championship leader Jean-Karl Vernay.

“I am always objective when I analyse a situation, and of course I can’t be happy”, said the former Grand Prix driver to TouringCarTimes. “I can’t deny I wanted more, because we fight hard in this championship and, although I don’t rule myself out of the title race completely, I know I’m starting with a huge disasvantage.”

Morbidelli still believes the car and the team have a huge potential to improve, but the time it will take to get on top of the issues is a luxury the Italian is not allowed: “I’ve been working with these guys for three years now, and I don’t think they have forgotten how to work. On the contrary, they want to get back to winning ways, and I try to encourage them in pursuing this objective. I think the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR has a lot of potential – after all Jean-Karl Vernay is leading the championship in the same car.”

“We need time to understand our car, but we almost ran out of it if we’re going to fight for the title, as we had hoped during the winter. We would need a few more test days, but the calendar doesn’t help to that respect as we won’t have time to test until Monza next week, so it will be difficult.”

According to the Italian, having a youngster such as Giacomo Altoé as a team-mate is not a disadvantage when it comes to developing the car: “I think Giacomo is talented and I’m happy to have him as a team-mate. Having said that, without testing not even Sebastian Vettel or such like would be able to help develop the car. It takes just a small mistake, and in this tight championship you lose three tenths and your weekend is ruined. I can only keep working, keep faith in the team and trust we will be able to improve and limit the damages in the next couple of races.”

A number of drivers raced at Spa-Francorchamps a couple of weeks ago, including Stefano Comini, Jean-Karl Vernay, Rob Huff and Tom Coronel among the others. The former Ferrari driver believes this doesn’t help, as it will be a disadvantage for him come free practice: “So many drivers have been here just a couple of weeks ago, whereas I wasn’t. I know this track quite well, but I have the Honda Civic I was driving last year in mind. I need to re-learn the track according to the Golf and go from there, which is something most of my rivals have already been able to do.”

Morbidelli last won a race in the TCR International Series just over a year ago at Estoril, Portugal.