Attila Tassi is prophet in his home country

Attila Tassi turned 18 last Wednesday and couldn’t have hoped for a better way to celebrate his birthday. In fact, the Hungaroring event turned into a triumph for him, the M1RA team and Norbert Michelisz who played the double role of team principal and driver.

Tassi broke his duck and claimed his first victories in the TCR International Series, which enabled him to jump from fourth to first in the Drivers’ classification with a margin of six points ahead of his teammate Roberto Colciago.

Michelisz accomplished his mission of ‘bodyguard’ in both races, protecting Tassi’s shoulders in Race 1 and Colciago’s in Race 2, and stealing previous points from Jean-Karl Vernay twice. The Frenchman tried everything to overtake Michelisz, but in the end had to settle with a third and a seventh that earned him enough points to stay in touch with the two leaders, 13 points behind Tassi and seven behind Colciago.
As for the other title contenders, Stefano Comini had a nightmare weekend, struggling to stay on the pace with the full Success Ballast onboard, and scored only one point, dropping from first to fourth in the standings, 25 points behind Tassi. Pepe Oriola returned to the podium by finishing second in Race 2 and so climbed to fifth in the standings with a gap of 42 points.

After scoring his first points last week in Austria, Jens Reno Møller performed brilliantly in the second race, leading for 10 out of the 14 laps and finishing third, claiming a podium place for the first time. His and Stian Paulsen’s results (the Norwegian was eighth in Race 2) proved that in TCR the smaller teams can actually fight on equal ground with larger and richer outfits.

The series will resume at Oschersleben’s Motorsport Arena, Germany for rounds 13 and 14 on July 8 and 9.

Race 1 – Tassi wins as Michelisz’s plan is successful

Norbert Michelisz proved that he’s not only a superstar driver, but also a fine strategist. After setting pole position yesterday, he made it clear that his aim was to help his protégé Attila Tassi to win his first race and to claim a podium result for himself.

His plan was a complete success!

The icing on the cake was Roberto Colciago’s fourth place that propelled the Italian driver to the top of the standings, while the previous leader, Stefano Comini, did not score and so dropped to fourth.
Tassi, Michelisz, the whole M1RA crew and the many spectators couldn’t hide their emotion when the Hungarian anthem was played on the podium.

There was a lack of position changes among the top drivers, while a number of battles raged for the other positions and several drivers were warned for repeatedly infringing the track limits.

After starting from the back of the grid because of a technical infringement in Qualifying, Mat’o Homola completed a strong recovery to finish 10th; Ferenc Ficza obtained an encouraging 16th position with the debutant KIA cee’d of Zengő Motorsport, although he was later dropped to 19th by a 30-second penalty for a grid position infringement.

Driver quotes after the Hungaroring Race 1

Attila Tassi (winner): “I am really happy. To win my first TCR International race here at home, in front of my home crowd, is just a dream come true, the best feeling I had so far in my career. I took a good start, and clearly, Norbi protected my… shoulders, I only had to focus on the corners and preserving the tyres, without having to look into the mirrors. In the last couple of laps, I started having some brake and understeer problems, but kept everything under control.”

Norbert Michelisz (second): “It all went according to the plan, but I must stress that Attila really won this race on his own merit, taking a perfect start. He completely deserved this first win, and he has done tremendous progress this year. I know exactly how he must feel at this very moment, and I also feel emotional about it, it’s like winning myself. During the race, I just tried to leave Attila some breathing space, but I had to make every effort to cover the lines and defend my position from Jean-Karl, who was faster in some portions of the track. Now, we should avoid over-celebrating, there is another race later and we need to stay focused.”

Jean-Karl Vernay (third): “It was a pleasure to fight with Norbi, really a great moment. I took a good start, but not good enough to pass the Honda cars, which are so fast at the start. Still, I could pass Colciago, we fought for a couple of corner, but I managed to stay ahead. I am happy with this result, as the objective was precisely to score some heavy points.”

Roberto Colciago (fourth): “It’s not a bad result under the circumstances. Something changed in my car after three laps, there was a sudden drop of performance, we don’t understand why. It has nothing to do with success ballast.”

Race 2 – Another win for Tassi and podium for Møller

Attila Tassi completed his and M1RA’s perfect home weekend by claiming another victory and so became the first TCR International Series driver to score two wins in the same weekend since Pepe Oriola in Bahrain last year; a feat that drove the Hungarian fans crazy and propelled the 18-year old Tassi to the top of the standings.

Jens Reno Møller was the other hero of the race, as he led for most of the 14 laps and eventually finished third; the first podium result for the Dane that came out of the blue considering that he crashed his Honda Civic yesterday during the Qualifying, which forced his team to work until 5:00 this morning.

Oriola was clearly determined to score as many points as possible in order not to lose contact with the points leaders; he was able to move up from fifth to second, overtaking Colciago, Altoè and finally Møller on the last lap.

Norbert Michelisz completed his job, by finishing sixth and keeping Jean-Karl Vernay at bay for the whole race, which helped his teammates Tassi and Colciago to build a margin over the Frenchman in the standings.

Two other drivers deserve mentions: Giacomo Altoè and Stian Paulsen. Even younger than Tassi, Altoè did his best to obtain his first podium; eventually he finished immediately behind the top three, but showed he has the speed and maturity to become a top driver. As for Paulsen, he finished eighth and so finally scored his first points in the International Series.

Driver quotes after the Hungaroring Race 2

Attila Tassi (winner): “It’s unbelievable what was happening this weekend! I could never expect such a day and I am really happy. I turned 18 last Wednesday and this was really a great present! I took a very good start, but there was a slight contact with Altoè in turn 1, and my steering got a little bit damaged. Still, I could pass him shortly after and then started chasing Møller when he made a small mistake. I am now leading the standings, which is great, but it doesn’t mean much, as the fight is so close and the leader keeps changing…”

Pepe Oriola (second): “I really wanted to finish on the podium after some recent disappointments, and I am very happy with the result and with my race. We changed something in the car between Race 1 and Race 2 and it proved effective. Being able to overtake Colciago, Altoè and Møller on such a track was not bad at all. My only problem was at the restart after the safety car, I was caught a little by surprise, as the radio was not working. It was also a good result for staying in the fight for the championship, which will go on to the very end. Still, today’s hero is Attila, I want to congratulate him warmly, and I know what it is to clinch one’s first success at a very young age, he has a bright future ahead. We also welcome him in the selected club of drivers that have won both races of a same event, we aren’t so many!”

Jens Reno Møller (third): “Twenty-four hours ago we were looking at a severely damaged car and almost packing to go home… now we are on the podium, it has been a fantastic comeback, so I am obviously very happy. We just told ourselves that we could not let go the opportunity of starting from the pole in Race 2 and we decided to have a try on fixing the car… We are a small privateer team, with five guys that worked until 5 am to repair everything and did it wonderfully. I took a great start and tried to build a gap, I think I did quite a good job. Tassi could only pass a few laps from the end, when I did a small mistake at turn 12. By then my tyres were dead, and eventually also Oriola passed, but third is a great result, given that our target is the European trophy finale in Adria…”

Giacomo Altoè (fourth): “It has been a tough race, I never sweat so much, but it’s a good result, actually the team’s best this season, although it is a little bit disappointing to miss the podium by so little. At the start, I had to keep Tassi at bay and dived very early into first corner. The back of my car slid and I hit him slightly, luckily with no damage for either. Oriola’s pressure was really heavy for most of the race and I could resist up to the moment my tyres were ok. The car has improved a lot, the tests we did at Adria before the Salzburgring actually helped to understand many things about the Golf. The improvements were not so evident in Austria, because of the long straights, but were much more visible here, and we are very confident ahead of Oschersleben, which should suit the Golf.”

TCR International Series