A troubled outing at Thailand’s Chang International Circuit took WestCoast Racing and drivers Gianni Morbidelli and Kevin Gleason out of the TCR International Series title race, although the Swedish team took some consolation from its newly-developed ‘Step 2’ Honda Civic TCR’s inherent pace (24-25 October).
Three hours of testing was sufficient for WestCoast Racing to get a handle on the brand new ‘Step 2’ Honda Civic TCR and Morbidelli was able to convert his unequivocal speed into pole position for the first race on Buriram’s state-of-the-art Chang International Circuit.
The ex-Formula 1 driver, who arrived in Thailand fourth in the standings with a shout of winning the inaugural TCR International crown, dominated the top of the timing screens from the outset of the two-part qualifying session, immediately setting the pace on his first flying laps in Q1 and Q2 and securing pole with a 1m43.423s.
“I am very happy to have secured pole position in my first outing in the ‘Step 2’ Honda Civic TCR,” said Morbidelli. “We did a couple of tests in Italy and then came here, so, evidently, WestCoast Racing and JAS Motorsport did a good job. This is an evolution of the car we used so far, so we are not starting from zero, and there is still a lot of room for improvement, as proved by the excellent time set by Kevin (Gleason) in the older-spec car, despite carrying 20kg of success ballast. We did a long run in free practice and everything went well.”
Sadly, Morbidelli’s championship hopes were dashed when he was slapped with a drive-through for creeping at the start of race one on Sunday (25 October).
The experienced Italian got clear of Pepe Oriola into the braking zone at Turn 1 and opened up a healthy advantage over the chasing pack before serving his penalty, tumbling to 18th but salvaging a solitary point for tenth at the conclusion of the 14-lapper.
Gleason, meanwhile, impressively took his success ballast-laden Honda Civic TCR to third position in qualifying, but lost out to the SEATs of Jordi Gene and Sergey Afanasyev at the opening encounter.
The 28-year old spent the entire 14 laps chasing the leading Craft-Bamboo trio and finished fourth, while René Münnich took his WestCoast Racing Honda to ninth, having been engaged in an entertaining race-long scrap with Tomas Engström.
There were glum faces on the WestCoast Racing pit gantry in race two, as all three Hondas were struck by misfortune; early contact resulted in a damaged right-rear wheel for Gleason, a punctured radiator halted Münnich and an overheating engine led to Morbidelli’s demise.
WestCoast Racing Team Manager, James Nixon, reflected on a disappointing day, saying: “Three DNFs is far from ideal, but both Gianni (Morbidelli) and Kevin (Gleason) had great pace and it was encouraging to see both the original car and the ‘Step 2’ version performing so well; it means there’s a lot of potential for 2016.
“Gianni took full responsibility for jumping the start and he was very apologetic, but he’s a man who makes very few mistakes. I think Kevin drove exceptionally well in race two and he was the fastest man after his unscheduled repair stop. Gianni’s day ended when his engine overheated as a result of the delayed start, while Rene was brought to a halt when a bolt from another car went through his radiator. As a result, there are no championships to fight for in the season finale and we can just look ahead to showing what we can do by finishing on a high in the Macau Grand Prix next month!”
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