Honda Racing team Sweden will resume its FIA World Touring Car Championship challenge in China after it was forced to skip JVC KENWOOD WTCC Race of Japan this weekend.
The outfit’s Honda Civic WTCC suffered extensive damage when Néstor Girolami crashed in qualifying for OSCARO.com WTCC Race of Portugal in July. While the Argentine was able to race at Vila Real following repairs, subsequent checks revealed more damaged had been caused than first thought, which impacted on the team’s logistics schedule and caused it to miss the freight deadline from Europe to Japan.
Rickard Rydell had been due to return to WTCC action in Japan after Girolami completed his scheduled two-race programme with the team. However, Honda Racing team Sweden’s withdrawal from Twin Ring Motegi will extend the Swede’s absence from competition for a few more weeks yet.
“It’s obviously disappointing not least because it’s Honda’s home event,” said Team Principal Nicklas Karlsson. “But the crash in Portugal meant we simply have no option. We continue to work flat out back at base in Sweden and are already eager to return to the grid in China.”
Sporting Director Stefan Lindberg added: “Unfortunately, the damage sustained in Vila Real qualifying forced us to carry out extensive and time consuming repairs following that event, and that’s the underlying reason for our absence in Japan this weekend. We enjoyed our strongest weekend so far in Portugal last time out, scoring our best race and qualifying results and going third quickest in practice. I’ve said it before, but the people working in this operation really are fantastic. I’m sure we can do even better in the races ahead of us, starting in Shanghai.”