Present:
Victor Shapovalov, LADA, first position (subsequently demoted to third position)
Alessandro Mariani, Honda, second position (subsequently promoted to first position)
Yves Matton, Citroën, third position (subsequently promoted to second position)

Q:
After dominating qualifying how good was that performance from your three drivers in WTCC MAC3 just then?

VS:
For sure I’m happy to win MAC3 today. The conditions today were unpredictable, really like a casino and very difficult. But I’m happy to win something in a casino.

Q:
At the start of MAC3 it looked like your strategy wasn’t quite going to plan, the start wasn’t quite how you wanted it to be. Was that the case with Nicky Catsburg appearing to stall?

VS:
No, to be honest, we don’t really make a different strategy for MAC3. The car was fast and we knew that we could do something special, so the drivers took their positions and we knew that if they pushed the result would come.

Q:
You said the car was fast but it was very fast in qualifying. Where has the speed come from? What can do put this performance increase down to?

VS: 
Just the conditions today. It looked like we were lucky with the set-up for these conditions with the tyres. As I said before it was a big casino and we win today but it’s difficult to say if it was something special or not. Maybe we were lucky, just lucky.

Q: 
Alessandro, second place for Honda in WTCC MAC3 this time, what was your strategy out there, was it as you wanted it to be in terms of who led and who was the third driver?

AM: 
No, we use the same strategy in every MAC3, we didn’t change here. Unfortunately, in the dry conditions we didn’t have a very good qualifying, and our gap in MAC3 I think was much smaller than before and we are not too far from LADA, who have had a fantastic weekend until now. So I’m happy about the MAC3 and it could represent that probably we need a better set-up for the heavy rain than we managed in the qualifying sessions.

Q: 
A very positive point is that Tiago Monteiro will start the Opening Race on the DHL pole position, which is a great thing for your team?

AM:
I could say that we had the perfect strategy but it was not. It was very difficult to make a prediction during Q2 because of the track was improving a little bit but in the end we were lucky for the first time this weekend for this Opening Race pole position.

Q: 
A first for the team this weekend with Tom Chilton replacing Mehdi Bennani in the line-up. Yves, just explain the thinking briefly why Tom was put into the team with José and Yvan for this event?

YM: 
Because in Nürburgring he did a very good race and he made a step, and since the beginning of the year we’ve seen what happened in the races before and we saw that it was time for Tom to be in MAC3.

Q:
And what do you think of his performance today?

YM:
We expected MAC3 to be quite difficult. We tried something that was not really working but we were quite happy with Tom’s pace in MAC3.

Q:
And just on qualifying Yves, we often see Citroën at the sharp end of the grid but there wasn’t a car in Qualifying Q3 today. Why do you think that was?

YM:
We expected to have a difficult weekend but maybe not so difficult. The weight is important in these difficult conditions but we are very happy to see LADA was able to do this 1-2-3 here.