Néstor Girolami: “I suffered a lot in the race”

Münnich Motorsport driver Néstor Girolami extracted the most of his Honda Civic Type R TCR to fend off his competitors and finish in third place in the first FIA WTCR race at Vila Real.

“The truth is that I suffered a lot in the last part of the race. When Norbi (Michelisz) started to be very strong, I started giving it all, driving even closer to the barriers, just to maintain the gap, knowing it would be very difficult,” the Argentinian told TouringCarTimes.

“Here it’s better to have a gap in case there is any problem or an unexpected error,” explained Girolami. “Then I saw he was very close on the last lap, but it was just the last one, so I was able to hold him off.”

The Honda continues to be one of the heaviest cars on the grid on maximum compensation weight.

“We have a huge deficit in acceleration, we suffered with this at Aragón and also here,” added Girolami. “In the corners the car goes very well, but we are lacking on acceleration.

“After Aragón we knew it would be difficult to come back to the top ten, but here we have managed it so far and we still can keep the championship hopes alive.”