While the skies darkened and rain fell, WestCoast Racing shone in qualification early this morning (19 November 2016) around the streets of Macau ahead of Sundays two rounds of the Suncity Group Macau Guia Race 2.0T races.
WestCoast Racing have three of their Honda Civic TCRs in action and having topped practice earlier in the race weekend it was Tiago Monteiro who made best of the short and frantic qualifying sessions to record the third fastest time with teammate Gianni Morbidelli sixth.
Qualifying was split into two with the fastest 12 from the first session graduating to the final pole shoot out. Rain however started to fall with five minutes remaining in the first session, but for WestCoast, the work was already done with Monteiro third and Morbidelli just making the cut in 12th after surviving a brush of the wall.
The WestCoast Racing team put in a tremendous effort in changing the suspension on Morbidelli’s Honda and astonishingly the Italian was able to take part in the second round of qualifying and in an especially fraught session in treacherous conditions, the WestCoast duo kept the cars off the walls and found clear space to put in competitive laps with Monteiro setting the pace initially before being bumped to third as a wet line started to form.
Morbidelli looked set for further improvement before being baulked by the Honda of Josh Files in traffic and after running wide under braking, was forced to pit on a lap that the team know would have moved him just ahead of Monteiro.
WestCoast Racing Team Manager, James Nixon, said: “The team did a fantastic job to make repairs to Gianni’s car during the session and equally for ensuring that we were the fastest Honda in qualifying. Gianni was on for a much better lap, but a small mistake cost him a chance to make further gains. We’re in a good position with two of our cars though – in third and sixth – and we’ll keep on pushing to make sure we get to the front.”
Mikhail Grachev meanwhile endured a tough session, losing control of his Honda Civic on cold tyres and making contact with the wall soon after leaving the pit lane. “It wasn’t the best start,” he deadpanned. “My two teammates are in the top ten and I’m not. I’ll be starting from the back and I’ll be very careful into turn one and then take it from there.”
The two Macau Guia 2.0T races get underway Sunday from 10.00am local time (GMT +8) with two 10 lap sprints separated by a 15-minute break with the grid order from race one determining the starting positions for race two.