Néstor Girolami: “It was a complicated day”

Néstor Girolami admitted that Saturday had been “complicated” for the Honda drivers after he secured a place on the second row of the grid following qualifying at the Sochi Autodrom.

The opening practice session in Russia had seen none of the three Honda drivers make it into the top ten, with Tiago Monteiro unable to take part due to illness.

In FP2 once rain arrived however, Girolami was able to set the fourth best time, just ahead of team-mate Esteban Guerrieri – leaving the Münnich Motorsport pair more confident going into qualifying.

Girolami almost fell at the first hurdle before scraping through Q1 in twelfth place but then successfully made it through to the shootout for pole, where he would run as the last driver on track.

Although quickest of all in the final sector, he had to settle for third spot on the grid with his focus for race day now being to try and help team-mate Guerrieri in the title race.

“It was a complicated day as we didn’t have good performance on the long straight and we were a long way away in FP1,” he said. “In practice two in the damp, we started to pick up pace and fight for the top ten but then Q1 was difficult and I only just just got into Q2 with P12 as the track changed a lot.

“We did some changes for Q2 and the car felt better and I could push to get into Q3 which was the aim and we have a good starting position tomorrow.

“We want to fight for the titles, and I will do my best to help Esteban as much as possible.”