Photo: TCR Series

Gianni Morbidelli happy with season’s turnaround after strong weekend in China

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WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli was delighted with the results of the weekend after his third podium of the season at Zhejiang in China, confirming that a key mid-season test has allowed the Swedish team to unlock the potential of the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR.

The Italian qualified in fourth on the grid in China, finishing in the same position in the first race, passing Pepe Oriola’s SEAT late in the race but also being passed by the BoP-free Hyundai i30 of Gabriele Tarquini with relative ease.

In Race 2, Morbidelli was battling for second with Comtoyou Racing’s Frédéric Vervisch, after he was caught and passed by Team WRT’s Rob Huff, who went on to take the win, while Morbidelli was vocal about Huff’s pass after the race.

That aside, the 49-year-old was happy with the way the weekend panned out.

“We had a very good weekend, I’m happy for WestCoast Racing and I’m happy for Volkswagen,” he said to TouringCarTimes. “It’s a shame that we couldn’t win, as now we’re going to Dubai with extra weight, which is only nice to have if you’ve won at least.”

Rob Huff was the highest scoring driver of the weekend, but as he’s absent in Dubai, nobody will carry the 30kg maximum ballast. Morbidelli was the second-highest scoring car, so will carry 20kg, 10kg more than championship leader Jean-Karl Vernay.

“We’ve completely changed our performance after a test we had at Adria,” he added. “For the first time during the season we understood the car a bit more and are able to perform better. I think before trying to find the performance just over a race weekend was too difficult, as it’s too short a time.

“(Since then) we had a great weekend at Oschersleben, and I think we were good in Thailand as well when you consider we have 30kg on a track like that, where it really hurts you because of the long straight. After today, we definitely go home happy.”