Present:
Rob Huff, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, first position
Norbert Michelisz, Honda Racing Team JAS, second position
Tiago Monteiro, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, third position
Tom Coronel, ROAL Motorsport, fastest WTCC Trophy driver
Mehdi Bennani, Sébastien Loeb Racing, leading local driver

Q:
Congratulations Rob on your first DHL pole position since your WTCC title-winning season in 2012. As that a big omen for the rest of the year to come?

RH:
What an incredible achievement today by the Honda Racing team, absolutely amazing. We were fairly confident coming here that the track would suit the car with the stability under braking, the traction and the drivability and we lost some [compensation] weight since the last event. I didn’t think my lap was enough because I made a couple of mistakes and my two team-mates were quicker in Q2 and I was quite taken a back by that. But huge congratulations and thanks to Honda for giving me this opportunity.

Q:
Turning to you Norbi, you were the last Honda driver to be on pole in the WTCC back in Japan last year. Was there anything you could have done differently to have beaten Rob?

NM:
I think that the car had potential for more but I have to say I was a bit too cautious in the last sector. I saw my time and I knew the lap time of Rob but I was just braking a bit too early for Turn 11, which cost me some time and it was impossible to gain back. But I don’t think it really matters who was on pole position. For me I would have loved to be on pole but the most important thing like Rob said is the 1-2-3 for the team and I am so proud to be part of this team. We have a feeling that everything paid off, all the hard work we have done is just amazing so thanks to all the team.

Q:
Not just first, not just second but third also for Honda – an amazing achievement but what about your lap in that qualifying shootout?

TM:
Yeah it’s definitely great for the whole team. We had said it so many times but so much work finally pays off and we knew we had the opportunity to do it today. We talked about it many times this morning and of course we felt comfortable and we felt we had the pace to do it but it was just a matter of piecing together the lap and doing it. I was a bit over-confident actually, I was pushing hard and I could see I had a good lap time but I was pushing too much and locked the wheels in Turn 7 and that was enough to lose 3/10ths and that’s quite a lot. I’m pissed off with myself but in the end the result is what matters and having the three of us here in the first three positions is fantastic and congratulations to everybody.

Q:
Turning to Tom, another good qualifying run for you and another WTCC Trophy pole but not Q3 this time…

TC:
No but it was close. Q3 was 9/100ths. The first thing I did with the car I was complaining about the confidence. We were bleeding the brakes in Q1 but it didn’t work out. It was the strategy to put fresh brakes on because these were the brakes from yesterday as we don’t have so many new ones. But it was just a case… with the small handicap I think I did what I could do. I was also asking where the others were and in my last lap I just had no confidence. Everywhere I was braking 10 metres earlier than I should have been. But I’m very happy because if you would have told me before the race I would be P7 I would have signed for it so no problem for me.

Q:
Turning to Mehdi, we’re very pleased to see you here but equally we were kind of expecting to see you battling in Q3. What went wrong?

MB:
For sure we tried to do our best and push to the maximum because we are in our home race but something was not going so well. We check everything with the team to see what we can improve on the set-up. When we have conditions like this we learn a lot and our aim in this championship is to still continue our learning.

Q:
Was it a car problem or were you just not happy with the set-up?

MB:
No we had a big problem with the understeer and even more on the old tyres. We need to check what happened. When you have a good car and a good feeling the result will follow but when you don’t have a feeling and you are not trusting to push the car to the limit… we choose our set-up with all the team and it’s not the first time it’s happened. We need to continue to work and find out how best to set-up the car.

Q:
We saw you winning last time out in Hungary but I guess it’s going to be quite hard to repeat that in the races tomorrow?

MB:
You never know! Tomorrow I think my aim is to score points and after we see our result. We are here to push and we will push to the maximum tomorrow.

Q:
Turning back to Norbi, what happened in MAC3 because it was going well and then your car ended up looking a bit second hand?

MB:
First I have to say thank you to Alessandro because that was a proper team principal defending his driver saying it was a set-up problem! To be honest the car on this corner is easy flat on every lap. I was surprised I was not able to do it flat on the second lap and I did not expect this amount of understeer there. Of course driving with 160-170kph towards the wall I had to back off. But it was too late and I brushed the wall. But we still have to analyse why I had this strange understeer. It can be I pushed a little bit too much in the first lap and the time wasn’t there in the second one. From the feeling it can also be a technical problem so I really don’t know what to say. Of course I am sorry for the team because it would have been so easy to be first in MAC3 and I think it was just up to me today so I apologise to them. Hopefully we can get some points back tomorrow in the races.

Q:
Being quicker than José María López means you obviously close the gap to him in the championship, even if it’s just by a point. Any thoughts on the title battle at this stage?

TM:
As we said we know we had a good performance here and it was a good opportunity to score some points. Pechito is never far behind and even when things are not going well he’s still somewhere there. It would have been better if I had a pole position to get away from him a bit more. There are two difficult races tomorrow and I know I will have to be a bit clever and finish the races and see where we are. But we are still in the fight, definitely more than ever.

Q:
Finally, back to Rob, and just on the races tomorrow. Overtaking is a big talking point here but has your opinion changed based on what you’ve learned about the track over the last few days?

RH:
For sure it’s a street circuit so it’s going to be very, very difficult. But ultimately you never know. On street circuits you never know because we’ve seen big crashes taking out the first 10 cars at Turn 1 so there is a chance for Mehdi to win a race yet! You just never know. The problem with street circuits is if somebody in front of you is touching the wall – and I really had to back out and almost brake when Norbi hit the wall in MAC3 and he did only just touched it. If he’d hit it hard and bounced back and hit the other one both of us would have been involved in the accident. For us as a team we are looking very much at the Main Race tomorrow and the Opening Race will be very much about survival. If we can get a few points further up the grid then fantastic. But I just can’t believe we’ve achieved this today, a 1-2-3 for the Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team is a hell of an achievement.

Questions from the floor:

Q:
Pietro Casillo (TouringCarTimes, Sweden) to Norbert Michelisz and Tiago Monteiro: Rob has answered already but I wanted to ask the other Honda drivers, what is the strategy for the Opening Race tomorrow – will you play it safe or will you try to take as many points as possible even if you have to take a few risks – or will you try to keep the 1-2-3 in the Main Race?

NM:
It’s difficult to answer. I think we have to be clever because the next target is to win the Main Race. I think for me if I take a look at the starting grid for the Main Race we just have to be careful in the first one. I don’t think scoring three or four more points in the Opening Race by taking risks is the right attitude. The whole team needs a 1-2-3 result in the Main Race but I think our target should be to get this result.

TM:
More or less that. It’s about being aggressive without being stupid. And be careful of the situation we are in.