Gianni Morbidelli hopes Oschersleben marks turnaround of fortunes in 2017

WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli was elated after scoring a double victory at Oschersleben, remarking that his fight for the win in Race 2 felt better than his comfortable victory in Race 1, as he catapults to eighth in the standings.

The Volkswagen driver has more than doubled his season’s tally in one weekend at Oschersleben, dominating from pole in Race 1, while working his way forward from an effective fourth to first in Race 2, passing the Craft-Bamboo SEAT of Dan Lloyd, the Team WRT Volkswagen of Jean-Karl Vernay and the DG Sport Opel of Mat’o Homola all at Turn 13, with his move on Homola taking place on the final lap.

“Nothing can be better than this,” said Morbidelli. “I’m proud of the job we did with WestCoast Racing, I had a good victory in the first race, but the second one was even better.

“I can’t say much more than I’m really happy. Yesterday, I said the first part of the season has been really frustrating, but we’ve woken up here and had two victories which has given us tremendous motivation for the rest of the season.”

Morbidelli said the crash at the start of Race 2, which wiped out six cars ahead of him was key to his follow-up victory.

“I think it was probably impossible to win from tenth place without the crash at the start, but in motorsport you have to be lucky,” he said.

Morbidelli’s string of passes at Turn 13 were the key to his victory, with the Italian’s Volkswagen Golf proving to be quicker than anyone else on circuit.

“I saw I was quicker than them at that corner I tried first with Lloyd and it was perfect. I tried it with Jean-Karl (Vernay) and it was also perfect, then when I first tried it on Mat’o it didn’t work, but on the last lap I did it in a better way.

“I hope this good result changes our season. We were not able to have good results until now, and we hope that Oschersleben has given us the key to be competitive for the rest of the season.”