Gabriele Tarquini: “Definitely not a very good weekend for Hyundai”

Gabriele Tarquini’s third place finish in the final World Touring Car Cup race of the weekend in Spain was the highlight for BRC Hyundai, a weekend that the 2018 champion labeled as “not very good”.

“Yeah, definitely not a very good weekend for Hyundai. We are very light, the car is there, but we didn’t win any races,” said Tarquini.

“This is not a very good weekend for Hyundai. I am part of the problem because in qualifying we didn’t work very very good. We had some small troubles but myself, I didn’t drive very well in qualifying, so it cost me some positions. But racing is like this, sometimes good, sometimes bad.”

Tarquini started eighth in the third race but made strong progress throughout the race to finish third behind the wheel of his Hyundai i30 N TCR.

“My third race was definitely my best one, but in the first two I had a problem on the car,” said Tarquini.

“In the first race I survived on the first lap and even if I was sixth and I was thinking overtaking is always very difficult, I had the pace.

“The pace was very good and I tried to attack and did some good manoeuvres and I overtake I think four cars. But unfortunately for me the race was too short. The two guys in front were far away.”

Team-mate and reigning champion Norbert Michelisz had another tough weekend, despite starting from pole position in the first race and could only manage sixth as his best result.

“While we were competitive in qualifying, things didn’t go our way in the races,” said Michelisz.

“My start in Race 1 wasn’t great and I immediately fell back two positions and I struggled for the rest of the race.

“I was confident in Race 3 up until the moment where I stalled on the grid. I’ve tried to be consistent all weekend and it didn’t feel like I had done anything different. It’s a shame, we should have secured much more but we are back in two weeks to resolve this.”