Present:
José María López, Citroën Total WTCC, first position
Tiago Monteiro, Honda Racing Team JAS, second position
Yvan Muller, Citroën Total WTCC, third position
Tom Coronel, fastest WTCC Trophy driver

Q:
José, that’s WTCC career pole number 15. That puts you equal third with Alain Menu in the all-time list and only two places behind Gabriele Tarquini, so congratulations on that achievement. Please can you talk us through your qualifying lap and how you managed to achieve such a good time.

JML:
I wanted to start from this, because I compete with great drivers, but part of this achievement is also because I am in a great team. Hats off to Citroën, 80 kilos in the car and we managed to be P1 in qualifying. It’s something amazing. We didn’t expect it because I was thinking ‘this is hard’ but I guess when these sorts of things happen, we work hard, we knew it was going to be difficult so congratulations to them, congratulations to Yvan, congratulations to Mehdi Bennani who did a great job and helped us to win the MAC3, the first ever MAC3. Congratulations to Tiago, he did a great job. The team has put Rob and Michelisz and he showed he’s strong so happy for him. From my side I’m really happy, it’s a pole I missed the last two years. Seb did it, and with Yvan we were joking that he’s not here so we have a chance! I had to fight a lot with Yvan especially in sector one. When they told me his sector one I thought it was over but my last two sectors were good, I don’t know if maybe he did a mistake or something but for me… every pole position is important but this one is very important to start this year.

Q:
Turning to Tiago, P2, front row of the grid for Honda, you must be very pleased with that result.

TM:
Yes, definitely very pleased with the result, the position on the grid. We were definitely looking for something like that, we were looking for pole position and to fight at the front as we said, after all the hard work we did over the winter as we said. We were really motivated yes, but also confident that we could do something special here. I must say that I’m surprised about the performance of the Citroëns with 80 kilos, yes. They still did a good job over the winter to keep improving and they are still very strong. It’s up to us to keep working but nevertheless I’m happy with what we did, we’ve been working steadily and fine-tuning the car for the weekend. So thank you very much to the whole team because it was a hard-working winter and I’m pleased with that. So tomorrow we have two new races and we’ll see what we can do. We know we have good starts, they are getting stronger and stronger at the starts as well so it will be very interesting. But at the moment we will analyse everything and take it from there.

Q:
Turning to Yvan, José suggested there was maybe a mistake from you on your lap in Q3?

YM:
No, not really. I have to look at the data but no, it was only a small oversteer in the Beausset but I don’t think I lost much time over there. I don’t know, I have to analyse the data to be sure and to see what’s happening exactly, but my first sector was fast, second and third sectors were not fast enough.

Q:
No problem with the car then?

YM:
No.

Q:
Turning to Tom Coronel, WTCC Trophy fastest driver but also in Q3 which is fantastic for you, but what happened to you on that fast lap for you?

TC:
Well it’s a big surprise to be here in the Q3. We didn’t even know the rules, so it was a little bit hectic. In Q3 I just started, and in the chicane the brake failed, big pressure but no brake force. We know sometimes there is a difficulty there. Also in the high-speed right-hander, T6, so I said ‘OK, I have to abort’. I knew also that the LADA was already out. To beat these three guys, that’s dreaming, so I was happy with the situation already.

Q:
No disrespect to you Tom but we didn’t see you in Q3 last year. What was the secret today, what actually went completely right for you to get that far?

TC:
Well first, for the first time in the last six years I’ve had one test day in which I’ve used three sets of new tyres, so that was already something new. ROAL Motorsport now is one car, so quite a lot of guys who are focussing on my car. During the test day, we changed a lot of things on the car, like a real test day has to be. Some things worked out very well. A very strange setup – check for instance my rear wheels, if you look at them you’d think there’s something wrong there but somehow it’s very fast around the track.

Q:
Turning back to José, your 50th start in the WTCC will be from 10th position on the grid with the new regulations for this year. What’s the strategy going to be in the Opening Race for you tomorrow?

JML:
What is going to be the strategy, it’s a good question. We’ll try to plan as much as we can but then, you know, especially in the second race you never know how you’re going to finish in the first corner. So I’ll try to do a good start and try to do a good first race, and of course try to take advantage of the pole position in the Main Race. We’ll see. It’s important to not break the car, for sure. That problem we didn’t have last year. Of course last year if you had a big impact you didn’t finish the race and you didn’t score points, but it was only one race. Now, if something like this happens in the Opening Race, maybe there is a chance that you don’t race in the second one, which is the one normally, in my case, today I’m starting from pole. So we see. I’m starting in the middle of the pack, where the lions are and all the things happen. Sometimes you turn in and someone is coming and you hear the impact and that’s it. We have to be careful and we’ll see. I think it’s going to be good fun, we’ll see the weather, we don’t know. But we always give a good fight, we try to with Tiago not do the same as last year. Let’s hope it’s a good show, as we said these kind of different things that the category and everyone’s trying to do to make it more interesting for the people out there, for the fans. We are fans as well so we want that.

Q:
José just mentioned last year and the collision between you. How good would it be for you to try and put that behind you by winning the Main Race?

TM:
That’s my goal. Starting on the first row, I want to win. Of course it will all depend on the start, then we’ll see but that’s my goal. I want to go for the win, I know we can do it here, and that’s what we’ll try. What happened last year it was a race accident and that’s it. We had many other race accidents in the meantime and that’s the way the WTCC goes. It’s a contact sport so that happens.

Questions from the floor:

Q:
Markus Lüttgens, Motorsport-Total.com: To Tiago. At the start of MAC3, what did you think when you saw in your mirrors that Rob was struggling to get off the line?

TM:
Actually, initially, I could not see him so I was not sure if he was hidden behind Norbi, I wasn’t sure because I could not see him on the mirrors, I could not see him on the right, so it was a bit strange. Then I realised once I got some distance, then I saw him. We just had to push, we hesitated waiting for him or not but in the end the time starts when we start and finish with the last one so there was not much more we could do. This kind of thing happens, we knew it could happen, and it happened in our case today. You only need to push as much as possible and hope that the others maybe have other problems, otherwise it’s gone.

Q:
Neil Hudson, TouringCarTimes: Question to Tiago and Yvan, sort of following on from Pechito’s comments about the fact that you’ve swapped races one and two around. How does that change your mindset really about how you’re going to approach the next race, and also the Main Race.

TM:
A little bit like Pechito said, our Main Race will be an important one for us where we start on the front, so there has to be some kind of special attention to what’s going to happen in the first race. We want to finish it yes, we’re not going to let everybody pass, but you have to be maybe a little bit more careful not to put yourself in bad conditions. Having said that, trouble sometimes comes to you, there’s nothing you can do about that. But at least we’ll try to be on the safer side without being too kind, you cannot lose too many points in the first one, you still have to score.

YM:
Yes for sure, we have to be cautious in the Opening Race because if you crash the car and you cannot restore it, you lose two races in the same meeting, so that will cost you too much. The opposite of last year when you had race one, you take some points there and then you could risk some more in race two. It will be different.