Gianni Morbidelli is targeting a podium return in this weekends TCR Europe double header at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain.
A brace of fifth-place finishes – once at Red Bull Ring and last time out at Oschersleben – have been the highlight so far for the Italian, who enters the weekend 14th overall in the WestCoast Racing-run Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR.
Morbidelli enjoyed a solid run through both the opening free practice session, clocking the third quickest time, but slipped to fourteenth later in the afternoon.
Speaking to media including TouringCars.net at the 2.89-mile Catalan circuit, Morbidelli underlined his objectives for the weekend, but says despite the positive showing on Friday, he doesn’t feel in a great place with the VW.
“For sure, the target this weekend is to fight for a podium,” explained Morbidelli.
“We need to because since the start of the season, the performance has not been good enough.
“We are happy to be near the top of the times, but I really did not have a good feeling with the handling of the car in that session, even if the performance is apparently good.”
“The pace is good because we have a light car, but this is only the case because the performance has not been good [before]. It’s been a tough year. We expected to achieve a lot more between myself and the team, who are really like a family.
“And also, we need to consider the fastest guys and not compare ourselves too much with them. They might have been using new tyres, we don’t know. So everything depends really.”
The trip to Barcelona proved fruitful for WestCoast last season, with BTCC racer Ash Sutton taking a podium with third in the final race of the campaign on his one-off appearance in the VW.
“Last year, the team had a good result, but for sure this year is different. We cannot learn too much from what happened then as the car is very different this season. We hope to do the same this weekend as the car is fast.”
Qualifying kicks off the weekends competitive action at 11:14 CEST today [21st September].