Norbert Michelisz says he was not expecting such a significant improvement in performance from his Honda Civic, after the Zengő Motorsport driver took pole in qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) in Japan.
Michelisz edged out championship leader José María López to take his first pole since Suzuka in 2013, and only the third of his touring car career.
“I said many times for me, okay, it’s good to win second races but for me the most important thing is to be there from the first corner, and to be honest we struggled with that all season,” said Michelisz, who was 0.080 seconds faster than López around the Twin Ring Motegi. “I knew we had some updates but I was not expecting a step like this so I have to say to everyone involved they did a fantastic job.
“Okay it was a good lap but without these improvements it would have been impossible to have this fantastic day. So once again thank you to everyone and hopefully tomorrow we will have another beautiful day.”
Michelisz recently got married to his girlfriend at the end of August, and admitted that becoming the first non-Citroën driver to take a pole position this season was the culmination of happy recent weeks.
“On the way to this press conference I thought to myself these were the three most happy weeks of my life because of my wedding and because of the fantastic weekend so far.”
Michelisz cited the testing carried out by the works Honda team, which he was also involved in, as the main reason for the upturn in performance, which also saw works driver Gabriele Tarquini top all of the practice sessions prior to qualifying.
“We knew from the beginning of the season which our weak points were,” added Michelisz. “We did an intensive programme during the summer where I was able to join the factory team for one day of testing. I cannot go into details, I hope you can understand, but, like I said, we know the weak points.
“In motorsport it’s very important to know where your strong points are but even more important to know exactly what your weak points are. We discovered many areas we have to improve and hopefully this is the first step in the right direction to fight constantly for this kind of position.”