Guerrieri completes double-podium weekend for Honda Civic Type R TCR

“It’s been a tough day and it could have been very different. In Race Two I was able to keep third place pretty easily until the ant-roll bar broke and I had Frederic Vervisch behind me. We had some contact, which I’d call a racing incident, but I lost many places. Then I got hit hard on the last lap and it broke the whole left-rear corner. The team did an amazing job to fix the car, even if it meant starting Race Three from the pitlane with no chance of a good result. From eighth on the grid – where I should have started – I think a top-five was easily achievable.”

“Today started out very promising with eighth place in Q1, but unfortunately the anti-roll bar broke and we didn’t have time to fix it, so I ended up 12th. There were some nice battles in Race Two and in the second half of the race the pace was within a tenth or two of the leaders. The incident with Yann Ehrlacher was unfortunate. I didn’t see where his car was because I was overtaking Pepe Oriola and his car blocked my view of Yann. I’m sorry for him because he was totally innocent in the contact. The guys did an amazing job to try and fix the car, but time just ran out. Still, I’ve learned a lot and will put that into practice in Wuhan.”

“Today’s results were not what we were expecting; in fact, without the issue in qualifying for Ma Qinghua, he might have qualified in the top six, and that would have meant a very different type of day. After the contact in Race One, he had some big damage, including to the turbo and intercooler. Knowing that an engine-change penalty would be very bad in Wuhan, we decided not to risk overheating it, so he didn’t start Race Three. Tom was quite racy and was rewarded for some well-judged moves early on by finishing both races much higher than where he started.”

“The speed of the Civic Type R TCR looked good this weekend and the podium for Esteban in Race Two, as well as the general race pace of Esteban, Yann and Timo was a strong indication of this. Ma Qinghua did a god job on his first weekend as well, I think. I’m disappointed that the driving standards don’t seem to have improved; when you look at the number of damaged cars on the Race-Three grid, - including those of our customer racing teams – you have to think that people need to think about the next race a bit more, especially as we’re going to a street circuit next weekend.”