Sweden’s premier touring car specialists Westcoast Racing achieved a fantastic double victory in the Italian round of the TCR International Series at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, outside of Milan (Sunday 24 May).
The team’s Italian former Formula 1 driver, turned touring car ace delivered a near-perfect performance to achieve pole position, a battling race one win and then a sensational race two performance to win from tenth position on the reversed grid.
Westcoast had prepared its trio of Honda Civic TCR machines perfectly for its drivers Morbidelli,
Kevin Gleason and Igor Skuz and each of the drivers ran high on the timesheets through free practice, giving the team a strong basis to improve and refine the cars ahead of Saturday’s (23 May) qualifying session.
In qualifying itself, Morbidelli was untouchable, using experience and local knowledge to top the timesheets comfortably, American Gleason looking like his only challenger before falling foul of a puncture at the ultra-fast Lesmo 1 corner that saw the 28-year old strike the barriers.
As a result, WestCoast Racing had some work to do to deliver the car to the back of the grid for the races, leaving Gleason with an uphill battle. Skuz, meanwhile, got to grips with the Civic in his third outing with the Swedish outfit and lined up seventh in his best performance to date.
Sunday’s two races proved to be combative affairs with Morbidelli showing every ounce of his racecraft and experience to recover from a slow start. He found himself fourth after the first corner and, over the next six laps, the local favorite fought back to recover lost ground and was a comfortable winner as the 14-lap race concluded.
Gleason showed superb resilience, battling through the field from 15th to finish a credible sixth and setting the fastest racing lap in the process, while Skuz ran well to climb as high as sixth until a braking issue sidelined the Ukrainian.
Race two and more of the same; Morbidelli once again raced hard and made passes to carve through the field, Gleason scythed his way up the order and Skuz benefited from a second row starting position to run fourth on the road until his two teammates surged onto his tail.
As Morbidelli moved up on his way to another great victory and Gleason again set the fastest lap of the race, Skuz dropped behind to eventually finish in in a career best sixth place. Gleason, on the other hand, was the unlucky one and picked up another puncture when it looked like he was en route to the podium.
Morbidelli said on his double victory “I am very excited to be involved in such great races and it was an incredible fight in race two. We were not so quick in a straight line today, but I could get lots of time at the Parabolica corner, which gave me good speed on the start-finish straight. Now we lead the championship and I have to thank the Westcoast Racing team for giving me such a great car.”
WestCoast Racing Sportpromotion Team Principal, Greger Peterson, added: “A really fantastic drive from a great driver; Gianni (Morbidelli) is so mature with so much experience, which showed today. He was the class of the field today.”
Meanwhile, a disappointed Gleason said: “I guess I picked up a puncture from debris from all the contact out there; it’s a shame as I was going well, picking up fastest laps in both races. I will need to get back on track at the Salzburgring to get my challenge back on track, although I have never been there before.”
Skuz was bittersweet about his sixth-place finish, feeling he had been passed under yellow flags by two competitors, but said he was “very happy with his performance.”
WestCoast Racing now moves on to Austria for the next round of the TCR International Series with the championship lead and high expectations for a great performance at the Salzburgring, Salzburg (30-31 May).
For more information on WestCoast Racing, please visit the officialwww.westcoastracing.se website, ‘like’ the team’s Facebook page and follow@WestCoast Racing on Twitter.