Honda drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro were left feeling disappointed after qualifying for the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) finale in Qatar, with neither works Civic breaking into the top ten.
A difficult start to the weekend saw Tarquini only break into the top ten once in practice, whilst Monteiro failed to complete any running in Thursday testing due to a turbo failure.
Matters failed to improve in qualifying either, with Monteiro the best placed of the works Civics in 11th, whilst Tarquini failed to even get out of Q1 and will start from 14th on the grid for both races.
“The car was OK during that session [qualifying] but I made a couple of mistakes in turn four and the last corner,” explained Tarquini. “I tried to recover but unfortunately it didn’t work and obviously I couldn’t improve on my time so that was it, end of session for me.”
Monteiro elaborated further on his frustrating qualifying, blaming a combination of traffic and low grip levels for his lacklustre run.
“The car was much better to be honest,” admitted Monteiro. “Having missed testing yesterday it put us on the back foot in terms of which setup and which direction to take. We were trying between the car’s several ideas and at first I was confused on which way to go, having not been settled with it yesterday. I opted to go for a similar setup to Buriram and the car felt decent.
“We knew Q3 would be difficult but a top ten was possible. Unfortunately behind traffic [that was throwing sand onto the track from off-line] there was much less grip; I could feel the sand on the track making things difficult – every time I arrived at a corner there was a little less grip and I could feel the car sliding.
“Unfortunately I just missed [the reverse grid] pole at the end, which is really frustrating but that’s the way it is. We’ve been struggling all week so I hope later we can finish on a better note.”
JAS Motorsport Managing Director Alessandro Mariani could not hide his disappointment, blaming the addition of 40 kg of compensation weight on the challenging qualifying.
“I’m disappointed because we lost the top five for race two and pole position as well,” added Mariani. “It’s a difficult track for us. The car wasn’t competitive enough because we are struggling here with the 40 kg success ballast.
“For the races there are several cars in front, and mistakes might be made which will enable us to work through; but it is a tricky circuit for all. Our drivers are solid in the races so we hope to do better tonight.”