So far in this years FIA World Touring Car Championship several things have become apparent...
Firstly, its going to be a Citroen driver who will win the drivers title. Thats a given considering that the French Manufacturer has spent millions on a TC1 car that is still at least 0.8 seconds faster than the rest having been built and tested since early 2013...even with 60 kilos on the car...
Secondly, even with Citroen making sure that the driver who wins the race is the first driver into the first corner, things are relatively even. Lopez has more wins but Loeb has his first WTCC win and Muller has taken his first pole of the season and his first win from Paul Ricard. However expect things to heat up as the season goes on...
If Citroen lets them...
Finally, the rest of the TC1 Field is working hard to catchup, but interestingly, each of the other TC1 Models have good but different positives. Whilst Honda have a start advantage second to none and almost BMW like in its nature, the Chevrolet has the power and speed to match the Citroen. The Lada has the agility and cornering benefit, as shown by Huffy in Paul Ricard. So the field will get closer.
For Hungary, the weight success ballast came into effect with the Citroen staying at Maximum weight whilst the Lada, Honda and Chevrolet dropped 60kgs...
The effect? Citroen went from being 1.5 seconds faster down to 0.8 seconds faster. Not really an issue in race one, but it meant that in race two, in traffic they might have a harder time overtaking cars that now had better tyre wear due to being lighter.
In Qualifying, Muller took pole ahead of Lopez and Loeb with Montiero 4th and Tarquini 5th. Bennani was 6th ahead of the ROAL Chevrolets of Chilton and Coronel. Morbidelli was 9th ahead Valente, this giving the Frenchman pole for race two. Michelisz was 11th on home turf ahead of Huff, Thompson, Munnich, Kozlovskiy with Borkovic put to the back of the grid. Pasquale Di Sabatino took the TC2 Pole ahead of Engstler, Taniguchi in the Nika Racing Civic and Filippi.
Race one saw Muller pull away whilst Lopez had to defend from the fast starts of Monteiro and Tarquini, who both overtook Loeb on the run to turn one. Michelisz made a cracking start from 11th to be 6th by turn two. Behind Loeb, Coronel and Chilton ran in formation with Thompson ahead of Valente and Morbidelli. On lap 3 going into turn 2, Valente tried to go round the outside of Huff, but this backfired and allowed Morbidelli through instead.
Ahead Muller began stretching his lead ahead of Lopez, whilst Monteiro, Tarquini, Benanni, Michelisz and Loeb ran line astern. Chilton was given a Black and Orange flag on lap 5 and pitted with a broken bonnet catch. Morbidelli passed Thompson whilst Valente began to hunt after Huff over the next few laps. Borkovic meanwhile made his way up to 14th by lap 7. One lap later Huff and Valente passed Thompson into turn one as Thompson struggled with steering issues which allowed Borkovic through as well. On lap 9 Valente passed Huff at turn three as the Lada understeered wide.
Muller went on to win race one from Lopez and Monteiro, followed by Tarquini, Benanni, Michelisz, Loeb and Coronel with Morbidelli and Valente completing the top ten. Meanwhile Di Sabatino won the TC2 class ahead of team mate Engstler in another Engstler 1-2 finish. Between race one and two, Benanni pulled put due to a turbo failure, which was a shame as the Morrocan driver seems to be the faster of the two customer honda's.
Now, while race one was a bit...processional, race two was a bit more lively...
At the start, Morbidelli had a better start than Valente and out dragged the Campos Chevrolet. Chilton got too much wheelspin allowing both Monteiro and Tarquini through whilst at turn one, Muller and Lopez were already making progress. By turn four, Muller and Lopez were ahead of Chilton with Tarquini and Loeb behind him. Monteiro made it into 2nd and began chasing Morbidelli whilst Tom Coronel began the best defence ever seen in a WTCC race.
He had both the Citroens of Muller of Lopez behind him and although Muller tried every move possible during the 14 lap race, Coronel held him at bay. Behind Loeb was trying every trick in the book to pass Tarquini, but you need to catch Gabriele on a bad day to pass him abd he was well up for the challenge of holding off Loeb. This allowed Michelisz to close up and join the fight.
Up front Valente closed on the Honda of Monteiro as he too closed in on Morbidelli who began to suffer with a longer brake pedal and after the race, the Italian would admit after the race that he had to pump the brake pedal to slow the car down. Further back Loeb kept trying to pass Tarquini to no avail whilst Muller found Coronel's defence equally as inpenetrable. Montiero had a look down the inside of Morbidelli at turn one on lap 8 but to no profit and fell back in line to chase the Munnich Motorsport Cruze again.
Now before the days motorsport activities, the circuit suffered from a brief storm on Sunday morning making the run areas wet as the track dried and this played its part on the last lap. Coming into the chicane, Morbidelli ran wide with Monteiro touching his bumper making the Cruze go wide and allowing Valente to close up on them both. All three cars ran nose to tail for the last half of the lap with all three in with a shout but it was Morbidelli who won from Monteiro and Valente, followed by Coronel, Muller, Lopez, Chilton, Tarquini, Loeb and Michelisz. Engstler won the TC2 race with Di Sabatino behind.
Its the first win for a non Citroen TC1 car this year, along with Morbidelli's first ever WTCC. Munnich Motorsport have been impressive in their two seasons so far of WTCC action. Last year Huffy won two races for them at Hungary and Macau in the ageing SEAT Leon WTCC whilst Marc Basseng was fast and the pack. This year Munnich has upped his pace as he competes in both the WTCC and selected rounds of the new FIA World Rallycross Championship in an Audi A3 Supercar. Its a great result for a team that only confirmed the purchase of their TC1 Cruzes, originally bound for Bamboo Engineering, only 3 weeks before the season opener.
The Lada's suffered in race two with various issues. Kozlovskiy had overheating problems and Thompson again suffered steering issues and its now becoming clear that the TC1 Lada is also suffering from being over weight by 5 kilos and suffering from issues with the suspension as well. Whilst the other manufacturers seem to be settling in, there still seems to be a lot of work to be done on the Granta Sport before it shows again the pace shown by Huff in France, but there are upgrades to come...
In the championship race, Lopez has a 10 point lead from Muller who is closing in on him with Loeb on 84 points. Behind the Citroen trio is Monteiro, Tarquini and Valente with these three drivers seeming to be the best of the rest in terms of points scores.
Next up is the Slovakiaring this weekend. The cars weights remain the same so Citroen will again have a fight on their hands but at a circuit that offers higher tyre wear with a combination of long fast corners, tight corners and long straights to test them to the limit. This should offer an even better show that some sort of race being held in Spain as well...
Cheers
Phil!
No comments:
Post a Comment