Attila Tassi weathered treacherous conditions at the Nürburgring Nordschleife to land his second WTCR – FIA World Touring Car Cup podium in as many race weekends.
The ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport driver started the race in third, and drove a strong opening lap to maintain that position – putting up a stout and defence of the place even against the superior straightline speed of a rival on the long Döttinger Höhe straight towards the end of the lap.
Attila ceded the position on lap two, but kept up his pace for the remainder of the race and was elevated to third when a penalty was applied to ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport’s Nestor Girolami.
For Attila, third place matched his best result in the WTCR to date – achieved two weeks ago at the Zolder season opener – and was just reward for a strong performance all weekend, despite his Honda Civic Type R TCR being taken out of sixth place on the final lap of Friday’s race one.
Just as Attila had done, Nestor drove an exemplary first lap, converting his pole position into a lead at the first corner and heading the field for the majority of the first tour before being overtaken on the Döttinger Höhe.
The Argentinian was overtaken by another car before the finish, but held Attila off on the final lap before his 30-second penalty, for a breach of the start procedure, dropped him to 11th in the race order.
‘Bebu’ nevertheless remains second in the standings.
Race-one winner Esteban Guerrieri made a strong getaway from seventh, making up one position on the Grand Prix loop and another when a car ahead of him went off to hold an early fifth.
Despite a small off of his own later on during the first lap, Esteban was on course to hold position until the end of the race, but was overtaken on the Döttinger Höhe in sight of the finish.
Tiago Monteiro backed up his first points of the season in Friday’s opening race with a ninth-place finish in race two.
Arguably the stronger of his two drives, Tiago made a phenomenal start by driving around the outside of one car exiting the first corner, and on lap two made a similarly impressive move on the Nordschleife to move into the top 10.
Though he ran out of time to make another overtake, the Portuguese still ended up with a second top-10 finish of the weekend – and pleased with the performance of his ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport Civic Type R TCR.
Both Münnich Motorsport teams now have a two-week break before the third round of the WTCR season at the Slovakiaring, which will mark the halfway point of this year’s six-round campaign.
Attila Tassi #9 – ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport : « After a disappointing end to yesterday’s race, it’s fantastic to have bounced back with a podium today. All in all I was very happy with my performance; I made a bit of a mistake at the start of lap two and that allowed one of the Lynk & Cos to undercut me, but I was happy that I could still put pressure on after that. On the last lap when I was following Nestor I just tried to be cautious and went for the optimum result for the ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport guys – they did an awesome job to repair the car overnight, so I’m glad for them that I could repay their work with this result. »
Tiago Monteiro #18 – ALL-INKL.DE Münnich Motorsport : « Everything was better today – the performances, the lap times, my feeling in the car. It felt really good, especially compared to those around me. I was fighting and fighting during the three laps, especially with the Audis, but each time I got by I was able to pull away. It obviously hasn’t been the beginning of the season that I wanted, but overall I think it’s great for the team. We had a win and a podium this weekend, so things are going in the right direction. We can see the difference in top speed that we are still missing to the Lynk & Cos and the Audis, but we’ll keep on fighting. »
Nestor Girolami #29 – ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport : « In terms of my race performance I am happy. I did a very good start to hold the lead and made a bit of a gap back to the Lynk & Co, but in the final sector it was really fast on the straight and I was overtaken easily. There’s something for us to work on as straightline speed is not our best, and we need to have a look into the data and see how we can improve our speed. The penalty is a bit of a shame and we still aren’t sure exactly what happened, but we will discuss it and try to learn from it. At the end of the day we are a team and we win and lose together and will come back stronger. »
Esteban Guerrieri #86 – ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport : « It’s nice to back yesterday’s victory up with some solid points. My start was fine, but straight away from the first lap to the grid I didn’t have the same feeling in the car as yesterday. We did a couple of tweaks on the grid but it wasn’t enough, so it wasn’t as comfortable as yesterday during the race – there was a bit of oversteer. I then had a bit of an off without losing a position, which felt like it compromised the power pick-up a bit, but it was manageable. Although it was a shame I couldn’t quite hold off the car on the long straight on the final lap, that aside the race was OK and it was good to get another decent result. »
Dominik Greiner – Team Manager – Münnich Motorsport : « A bit of mixed feelings today. It was a really good result for Attila, he showed great pace, and Esteban scored valuable points, which is very good for the Teams’ Championship. Tiago also did a good performance to make up some positions, coming out on top in a couple of battles. We are disappointed about what happened with Nestor; this thing shouldn’t happen, but it has and now we need to investigate what went wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m very sorry for him, now we need to look into the details. »
Mads Fischer – TCR Project Leader, JAS Motorsport – JAS Motorsport : « While we were hoping for a repeat of yesterday’s fantastic win, it was still a great performance from Attila to score his second WTCR podium today – showing not only his improvement from last year to this but also underlining the potential of the Honda Civic Type R TCR and highlighting the great work of the Münnich Motorsport guys to get the car repaired after the incident yesterday. Some vital points scored for Esteban, Tiago and Nestor – despite his unfortunate penalty – as well, so we can leave pleased with this weekend’s work. »
Press Release,