Norbert Michelisz saw his qualifying session ahead of the Macau rounds of the 2011 FIA World Touring Car Championship affected by yellow flags which ultimately cost him the chance to fight for Pole Position around the streets of Macau.
The qualifying result sees Michelisz starting from twelfth position in both races – ahead of his main Yokohama Independents’ rival, Kristian Poulsen, Poulsen lines up fourteen for both of Sunday’s races.
Michelisz was all set to complete three timed laps in the first part of qualifying and after his first run, he was fourth fastest but as the times improved, the Hungarian driver dropped down the order and soon was forced to head back out on track.
Heading into the second run, Michelisz had targeted a position between seventh and ninth to give himself and the Zengo-Dension team a favourable starting position for the season finale – yellow flags on the final two laps denied Michelisz the opportunity.
“I was very positive ahead the qualifying as I used more worn tyres on the free practices than the others and I knew that we would be able to get into the Top 10 on our own but this wasn’t enough we also knew that we must aim for the best possible starting position even in Q1 so our window was very tight,” said Michelisz on his qualifying session.
He stated that he was on target to achieve the aim of seventh to ninth in qualifying one before the yellow flags. He believes he couldn’t have achieved anything different to what he recorded: “Everything went according to the plan, I could do the required times right until the last sector of the last lap. Since there was a yellow flag on my first lap, I knew that I can take another one easily, it worked out quite well but one of my competitors hit the wall in the penultimate corner and I was shown the yellow flag again. Then I knew that it was over. I’m very annoyed but in my opinion, today we could have done anything but the outcome wouldn’t be different.”