Gianni Morbidelli calls it a day for title ambitions

Gianni Morbidelli managed his first podium since Estoril at Sochi, Russia. However, a suspension failure on his WestCoast Racing Honda Civic TCR led to his retirement in the second race as he fought against B3 Racing’s Attila Tassi for third.

“A frustrating weekend and I think we have lost all chances for the championship, despite what the figures say,” said the Italian. “The car is just not fast enough. As it happened last year, we had a good start and then we started struggling.”

Morbidelli admitted third was the best he could aim for, and explained the problem which put his second race to an end: “Today, third in Race 1 was the maximum we could aim at and in Race 2, when I was fighting for some heavy points, something broke in a suspension.”

The Italian is 38 points behind championship leader James Nash.