Esteban Guerrieri: “I had to take risk and it paid off”

Esteban Guerrieri claimed his second FIA WTCR pole of 2021 at Estoril, heading a strong Honda 1-2-3.

“I messed up with big oversteer and I had to recover somehow and I went to the last sector and attacked quite a bit,” said Guerrieri.

“It just paid off because it’s very risky the last two corners to mess up with some understeer and stuff like this. But I knew if I wanted to be up there I had to [take] risk and it paid off.”

The Argentinian driver beat local hero and Münnich Motorsport team-mate Tiago Monteiro by 0.117 seconds.

“And I also tried to recover in the last sector which was decent, not as fast as Esteban but really close,” said Monteiro.

“It was a good lap, we had a strong package and by pushing each other we managed to do that. So the front row for my home race, I can take it and accept that.

“We can win from here and so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Two long races and it will be very interesting. We don’t have the public but we could see some people around the track cheering, so we have a little bit of the atmosphere of the Portuguese fans.”

The pole handed Guerrieri five points to the drivers’ championship where he is currently placed fifth. Monteiro received four points and Néstor Girolami, who qualified third, three points.

Monteiro is placed second overall, four points from points leader Jean-Karl Vernay, with Girolami third, one point further behind.