Honda take away Chinese podium

Honda claimed a 19th podium of the year at the FIA World Touring Car Championship's Race of China on Sunday with a superb second place for Norbert Michelisz.

From second on the Opening Race grid Michelisz made a storming start to take the lead and pull out a sizeable margin, despite his Civic WTCC carrying 60kg of compensation weight at the Shanghai International Circuit.

His advantage was wiped out, however, by the introduction of the safety car for an incident further down the order, and despite a sensational piece of clean defensive driving, he was relegated to second place on the final lap after contact from rival Thed Bjork.

The Hungarian's eighth rostrum finish of the year, added to 11th spot in the day's later Main Race, moved him up to fourth in the drivers' championship and ensured he will play a key role in the battle for the runner-up spot in the points over the remainder of the season.

Team-mates Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro both made excellent progress during the pair of races, having started each encounter from 15th and 14th places respectively.

In the Opening Race the pair moved onto the fringes of the points positions within a handful of laps; Rob passing Tiago, whose car suffered rear-end damage early on, late on for ninth spot.

In the Main Race, a rocket start for Tiago moved his Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team Civic up four places in an instant. The Portuguese finished eighth with Rob 13th while suffering from a front-end vibration.

The results of the weekend mean that Tiago, Norbert and Rob sit third, fourth and fifth in the championship with all three still in contention for the runner-up position in the points.

Norbert Michelisz, Honda Racing Team JAS, said: "On the one hand I'm very pleased to finish second; it's not something I was expecting after free practice, and after qualifying I thought that a podium finish would be a great result. But of course, when you lead for 98 per cent of a race, it's hugely disappointing not to win. I lost a good lead when the safety car came out and with 60kg of compensation weight, I had to ask a lot of the front tyres when I tried to re-establish a gap. This is what compromised my pace for the past few laps. I defended well from Thed, but it wasn't quite enough."

Tiago Monteiro, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, said: "It hasn't been a great weekend as we've generally struggled with straightline speed and with 60kg of compensation weight. On that basis, to score two top-10 finishes isn't bad, but in reality our performance just wasn't there. I had a pretty bad balance in the Opening Race and this wasn't helped by a bit of contact that knocked the toe out at the rear end. But I have to thank the team because, despite there being such a short gap between the races, they made some changes and it transformed the handling for the Main Race. I only managed to finish two places higher up, and I've lost quite a lot of points in the battle for P2 in the championship, but I'm not going to give up."

Rob Huff, Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team, said: "It's been a disappointing weekend for myself and the whole team. From P15 on the grid it was going to be tough to score any points, and it wasn't helped when a couple of cars hit me on the first lap and the second lap, which meant I had to regain lost ground. Considering all that, P9 and two crucial points was an OK result. In the Main Race I made a great getaway, but more or less instantly had a huge vibration – which felt like it came from a damaged tyre – and it made the car undriveable. From there I just focused on making the finish and hoping that some cars in front dropped out."

Alessandro Mariani, Team Principal, said: "I think we maximised what we were capable of this weekend. We knew that this would not be a great circuit for us as the characteristics of the track, with long straights, don't allow us to exploit the strengths of the Civic. Norbi drove a fantastic Opening Race and was very unfortunate to lose the victory so close to the end, and Tiago and Rob both made some good progress too. The Main Race showed what our pace was this weekend and unfortunately that meant not so many points, but the positive is that we should lose a lot of compensation weight for the next round, which will help our performance level."

Daisuke Horiuchi, WTCC Large Project Leader Honda R&D, said: "To come to what we expected to be our most challenging circuit and get to within two corners of victory is really quite positive, even if we knew that overall the pace was not that strong in real terms. Norbi's result was mainly down to the strategy that we managed to make work in qualifying to get him near the front of the grid, but he still drove very well and deserved to win. After this weekend we now expect to lose a lot of compensation weight for the next round and our aim will be to get back onto the top step of the podium."