Gabriele Tarquini “qualifying mistake cost me win in the first race”

2009 champion Gabriele Tarquini believes Honda had the pace to win the first race for the first time against Citroën at Motegi, but a mistake in qualifying cost the Italian the chance to be in the top five shootout for pole position, and had to make do with third.

Since Citroën joined the championship in 2014, the French manufacturer has only been beaten to victory in the non-reversed grid race once, by ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton at Beijing last season, but after Tarquini topped every practice session at Twin Ring Motegi, it looked like Honda were going to be able to capitalise on their compensation weight advantage this weekend.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t win the first race, and this was really a shame because for us it was very, very important to win the first race but that’s it,” said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes.

“I was really optimistic as the car felt great. I was really confident, I decided to go for the one attempt in (qualifying) Q2 but unfortunately I made a mistake in Turn 1, I had oversteer on the turn in and pushed too hard to recover, and as usual when you are overdriving I made a mistake in Turn 7 and my lap time was really ****.

“We had a great car all weekend, and unfortunately, because of my mistake I couldn’t enter Q3. I made a great start in race one, but as soon I saw joined Norbi (Michelisz) there was no chance to get past someone in the same car as you as the speed is similar.”

“In the second race, I was in the middle of the action so I fought from the first corner to the last corner. I had many contacts with Ma (Qing Hua) twice, he pushed me off on the first lap, and on the second lap I tried to overtake him and after I touched him again in Turn 1.”

“I then had a big fight, a fair fight with Sébastien (Loeb), because he’s very fair I was very fair with him, and also with (Rob) Huff. Huff slowed down a little bit and so we packed all together, he did a great job and deserved third place, for the show and for the spectators it was a great show.”

Michelisz had qualified on pole position, the first for Honda in the TC1 era, but José María López got the jump on him at the start and went on to take win #7 of the season. Tarquini believes with a better start, the chance was there for the victory, but Honda’s previous standing start advantage has now been matched by Citroën.

“I think if Norbi could have led the first race, he could have won it. It’s not very easy to follow another car here, and unfortunately the race was lost in the start. Last year we had a small advantage, but I think Citroën now have caught up.”