After six top ten finishes this year until this weekend at Oschersleben, it had been a difficult time for Gianni Morbidelli, but the Italian came back with resurgant form by winning both races in emphatic style.
The WestCoast Racing driver asserted his dominance over the weekend’s proceedings by take pole position and narrowly avoiding the multi-car incident on race two to fight back to the sharp end of the field.
“Nothing can be better than this – I’m really excited and proud of the job that we did together with WestCoast Racing. I did a good first race, but the second one was even better,” said the 49-year-old, who was back fighting after the new Balance of Performance parity scale was enforced.
“I pushed and did some good manoeuvres – it’s good and I can say that I’m extremely happy – for me and for the team.”
With a maximum score of 55 points through both races and qualifying, he now moves up to eighth in the standings on 77 points, as the TCR International Series moves to Asia very soon.
But he felt slightly uneasy after the Safety Car restart, even with the pace that the Volkswagen had this weekend in Germany
“I was worried because when they did the safety car you have to start again and it’s always difficult to make the gap again, but I was able to as my pace was very good.
“You never know here as you can have a lot of understeer towards the end of the race and other things can happen.”
He explained at the post-race press conference that it was easier to pass both Daniel Lloyd and new championship leader Jean-Karl Vernay, but came under sterner opposition when he attempted to pass DG Sport Compétition’s Mat’o Homola, before making the move count at turn 11 on the final lap.
“At that corner I had seen that I was quicker than them, and it was maybe the only place where I could attack. I tried first with Lloyd and it was good, so I tried it again with Jean-Karl and it was perfect and then I tried with Homola as well.
“The first time it was not so good, it was not so easy, but then on the last lap I did the move probably a better way.
Now with a seven-week break between races, Morbidelli is looking forward to a much-needed holiday, as well as looking ahead to the final three race weekends of the year.
“I’m looking forward to it with more satisfaction. I hope that this good result changes our season – we were not able to get good results until now, and we hope that Oschersleben gave us the key to be competitive for the rest of the year.”