Norbert Michelisz

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    268 Races
    15 Victories
    55 Podiums
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Zengõ Motorsport driver Norbert Michelisz lines up fourth on the grid for the first race of the day tomorrow in Macau. The Hungarian took his first FIA World Touring Car Championship victory in Macau four years ago in his debut season, and hopes to fare well on Sunday, where he has a shot to end the season as the highest placed Honda driver in the standings.

Michelisz is now two points behind the Castrol Honda entry of Tiago Monteiro in the standings, who after a strong start to the season, has had a run of bad luck in recent races. Meanwhile, Michelisz has been scoring consistently and is hoping to make the most of his unexpected grid position.

"I was not happy with Q2, as both of my flying laps were not perfect," said Michelisz to TouringCarTimes. "I made mistakes and I didn't believe it would be enough to get through to Q3, but fortunately the car was good enough. In Q3, my lap was good, with no mistakes, so to be P4 was more than I expected," he added.

"The first sector for us all weekend was a weak point, so with the slipstream (in Q1 & Q2) it was possible to close the margin to three or four tenths, but as we saw in Q3, without the slipstream we were half a second off."

On whether the Hungarian would be able to mount a challenge to the three factory Citroën cars ahead, the 30-year-old was cautious, but optimistic.

"With the Honda, all year long, if you manage the standing start it's possible to gain places. The races will all be about the standing starts.

"It's similar to Argentina, if you look at the lap times, the advantage they have is half a second, but if I have a good start and gain some places it should be possible to score a podium finish, which will be my target...but we also have to consider our chances to finish fourth (in the standings), with the gap to Tiago (Monteiro) only two points. So this weekend is about scoring as many points as possible, and even without a podium finish, if I can get two good points finishes I'd be happy, but I need to get a margin in the first race over the works cars in order to manage the gap in the second race."

Source: Touringcartimes.com