Yvan Muller’s qualifying outburst down to “mounting frustrations”

Yvan Muller qualified 13th for both races at Vallelunga, with the Frenchman’s onboard camera showing him venting his anger and frustration.

“I’ve had to sacrifice myself, because if I finished the lap another blue car would have been out of the top ten,” said Muller to TouringCarTimes.

“I feel I had the speed to be in the top five, but I had to back off. It’s not just what happened today though, it’s a frustration that has been mounting ever since the beginning of the year due to several situations.”

Muller crashed at high speed during practice due to a puncture when performing a race simulation, with the quadruple champion at loss on how to solve the tyre issues.

“We don’t know what else to try, we had five different setups and we all had problems. We had been told to use a maximum camber of 4,5°, we tried with even less, but it didn’t work,” said Muller.

The French driver is not sure whether other cars will not suffer from the same type of problem: “The long runs lasted about 15 laps, but the race is going to be 23 laps, so I’m not sure Lynk & Co and Honda are the only ones suffering. Of course we are the heaviest car, so this could play a role, together with the heat.”

Muller’s plan for tomorrow’s races is very simple: “I will go slowly and try to see the chequered flag!”