TCR World and life

12 INTERVIEW Thekingofthe WorldTouringCars NORBERT MICHELISZ EXPERIENCED A SEASONWITH TWO FACES Norbert Michelisz’s pursuit of the World Touring Car crown seemed to be doomed. Between 2013 and 2017 the Hungarian driver was a title contender in WTCC, winning races and finishing runner up to Thed Björk in 2017 after losing the points of the China event following the disqualification of the Honda team for a technical issue. Finally, in 2018 he had to sacrifice his chances to help his teammate Gabriele Tarquini to become champion. After the first four events of the 2019 season few people would have bet on him. And yet, an impressive streak of results propelled ‘Norbi’ to the top of the standings. What was the turning point of your season with two faces? “It was the Nürburgring, when I won my first race. I was quick from the beginning of the season. P1 and P2 in Qualifying at Marrakech, another pole position in Hungary, but my performance in the races was not as good. I realized I had to improve, especially in managing the tyres. They were different from 2018 and I had to get used to them, because we hadn’t had much testing in the winter. And so I began to study all the data from my fellow Hyundai drivers, worked hard to understand what was the best strategy for the qualifying lap and that for the race distance. That was the key and, all of a sudden, things started to come my way. In the second part of the season I was always at the front and won five races. This also happened thanks to the support from the team and from my three colleagues Gabriele, Nicky and Augusto. Now I take the honours and the glory, but this was a huge team effort from everyone!” Five wins helped you to arrive to the season finale as the points leader. How did you feel on the eve of the Sepang races? “I was incredibly happy, because I had been able to recover a huge gap in the standings and was leading. However, I was also worried, because I knew that anything could happen during the last races, especially when you face changeable weather conditions like those that were forecast in Sepang. I couldn’t sleep on Saturday night. Suddenly, after winning Race 1, my nightmares became true. I was too cautious at the start of Race 2 and found myself amidst a pack of spinning cars. Luckily the race was suspended and I could restart in a decent position. But then, again, going to the grid for Race 3 I went full throttle and the car was just not accelerating. I honestly thought that it was over. Rolling to the grid the car went off, I was quite lucky even to get to my starting position because the guys had to push me there and then still restarting the car the engine was running sometimes on three cylinders or two, I don’t know what had happened. Then I was lucky enough at the start of the formation lap to be able to reset everything. It was up and down, by far the longest day of my life.” You had two dogged rivals in Esteban Guerrieri and Yvan Muller. They made your life tough until the very end. What do you think of them? “They are great drivers and would have both deserved to be champion as well. Especially Esteban, who ran into troubles while leading the last race. I felt sorry for him, because I know from my previous experience how