Norbert Michelisz concerned after excessive damage costs in recent rounds

M1RA team principal Norbert Michelisz has said he’s concerned after a few tough races for the Hungarian squad, with Attila Tassi’s car completely replaced after a crash in Austria, and with Roberto Colciago’s car heavily damaged in a crash at the start of Race 2 in Germany.

The Honda team had their worst weekend of the season, with neither scoring any points, with Tassi losing the lead of the championship, and with Colciago dropping to second as the Volkswagen of Team WRT’s Jean-Karl Vernay moved ahead.

Colciago qualified in eighth, with Tassi down in 13th for the first race, with Colciago at least in a position to score good points in Race 2 from third on the reversed grid, until he was involved in contact with Vernay’s Golf and the SEAT León of James Nash, spinning across the track as part of a seven-car pile-up and retired with heavy damage.

“We expected that we would struggle here, but the weekend was a bit worse than I thought it would be,” said Michelisz to TouringCarTimes.

“The second race with Roberto not finishing and not scoring points hurts the championship, and then the puncture at the end for Attila was really the low point for us,” he added.

“It had to happen at some point, because so far we’ve been on the podium every race weekend, so hopefully there’s no more bad luck for the rest of the season. If you want to look at the positives, we’re still in contention with the drivers’ championship and we’re leading the teams’ championship.”

Michelisz says that although the team is enjoying great success in terms of results, the repair costs in the last few rounds are a cause for concern for the brand-new team, with a tight turnaround before shipping the cars to Thailand later this week.

“At the last three race weekends we’ve had two cars with a lot of damage, so the difficult thing for us is to put two cars in the container. We have just two or three days before the cars are shipped – the guys have done an amazing job so far and I will organise some holidays with them if we succeed.

“From a financial point of view, it’s really difficult times now. Everyone sees the results and thinks we have the budget, but problems like this need to be managed.”