Gianni Morbidelli holds on to championship lead despite qualifying disaster

WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli converted 15th on the grid to fifth in the first race of the weekend at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, and with closest rival James Nash finishing in eighth following contact with Jean-Karl Vernay, the Italian retains the championship lead, but will need to repeat Friday’s feat on Saturday, also from 15th on the grid, in order to keep ahead of the chasing Craft-Bamboo SEATs.

“We damaged our weekend in qualifying,” said Morbidelli to TouringCarTimes. “We were also quite lucky as I did a good start, so I think we’ve limited the damage, but we made a mistake in qualifying, I was not able to do a good lap time or able to get the measure of the car. We struggled too much in the first practice, after that you’re always behind as you don’t have a lot of time with just two 30-minute sessions and you have to be focussed on resolving the problem.”

Morbidelli, along with team-mate Kevin Gleason, both worked their way up to fifth and sixth in the race, while team-mate Aku Pellinen converted third on the grid into his first win, and the second for the Swedish team this season.

“Once again, the car’s done a good job, but we have to be sure that a problem like this won’t happen again,” added Morbidelli. “We tried something in qualifying which was definitely not the right way, but the car was better in the race. Let’s see if we’re in a condition on Saturday to do another good race or at least score some points.”