Norbert Michelisz: “I focused on scoring the points”

BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse’s Norbert Michelisz felt he had some pace to attack for the podium in Saturday’s opening TCR World Tour race in Valencia.

However, he took a conservative approach to secure the points after problems suffered by Geely’s Yann Ehrlacher and his own team-mate Mikel Azcona.

“The race was not easy, I did my best,” Michelisz told TouringCarTimes. “My start was not bad, but immediately Comte took the inside line.

“And then, from that moment, I did my best to follow the train and waited for a chance to come, trying to not to do anything bad.”

Geely driver Ehrlacher retired on lap 16, sending a warning to the remaining drivers.

“When I saw that people in front having problems, we agreed with the team on the radio to take the points,” the Hungarian explained.

“I feel that I had small margin, maybe it would have been enough to attack the Cupra (Comte), but I knew that had the blue cars in front of the Cupra and they were very fast.”

Five laps from the end of the race, Mikel Azcona suffered a tyre failure after having led the race for over 20 laps, and Michelisz was warned about the issue.

“I’m very sorry for Mikel, it’s not nice,” he said.

“They warned me and told me to care about tyres, because we knew that it was a short layout, I mean, also the rears are taking a big beating because of flat spots, it was very easy also to pick up a puncture from the rear.

“I felt some vibrations, I think from over here, so it was about taking the points.”