In qualifying, after I had left the pits I immediately knew that something was wrong, the steering felt heavier, and I began to think that I was not fit enough and my arms were getting tired!!! That was something that I wouldn’t have been very happy with as I work extremely hard on my fitness, and I have stepped it up another gear this year to try and eek out any advantage over the other drivers in the WTCC.
I knew half way around the lap that the power steering was failing, making the car very difficult to drive competitively. My team manager Thomas Sheimann told me to pit and my team, Wiechers Sport, worked quickly and fixed a punctured power steering line underneath the car. I had around six minutes remaining in the session. I did an out lap and then started my flying lap; my first sector was really impressive and it set me up well for the rest of the lap until I got to the hairpin and a drive shaft let go! Unbelievable I thought! That left me 33rd in qualifying - not where I wanted to be!
In race one the car felt pretty good until around lap six and then I was struggling with bad oversteer. However I worked hard in the race and I finished 22nd overall and eighth in the Independents. I just had to concentrate hard and I picked one car off at a time. There were no real dramas in the race - it was boring enough actually, I had made most of my overtaking manoeuvres by the sixth or seventh lap. But the result did not leave me in too bad a grid spot for the second race.
