Citroën: “Honda have better things to do, like work on race strategy”

Citroën Racing team principal Yves Matton had harsh words for Honda following their protest last night which carried on through the night, declaring that the strategy employed to get Yvan Muller and Ma Qing Hua on the front row was clearly within the regulations and that the protest was a waste of time.

Honda filed a protest, which was deemed inadmissible by the stewards following qualifying, declaring that Yvan Muller and Ma Qing Hua acted in an unsporting manner by deliberately setting slow lap times in order to secure the front row for the upcoming race two grid, where the top ten were reversed.

Honda’s logic was that the incident was unsporting, but Citroën are adamant that no rules were broken and that Honda should have spent the time elsewhere.

“Yesterday night was a waste of time,” said Matton to TouringCarTimes. “I think Honda had better things to do last night and work on race strategy, that’s my point of view.

“It was better to focus on qualifying and what they wanted to achieve and maybe put some cars at the front and cars at the back (of Q2), rather than wondering why after the qualifying that other teams did a better job.”

On whether he felt Ma’s lap of 3:17 seconds around the circuit where pole was set at 1:58.515 could be considered unsporting, Matton responded:

“If it was unfair following the regulations, than the decision wouldn’t be what it is. Ma was last on the track, he could trouble nobody. For sure, if he was doing the lap in three-minutes and was disturbing a car behind him that was doing a time, that would be different, but he was last on the track, so I don’t see where there is a problem.”