Long night ahead for Rikli team to repair pole-winning Honda

Rikli Motorsport are working to repair Kris Richard’s Honda Civic TCR ahead of tomorrow’s race, after the 22-year-old Swiss crashed out at the Nürburgring chicane whilst on a flying lap at Magny-Cours, just after setting the pole position time.

Richard is set to start from pole ahead of his chief championship rival, Krenek Motorsport’s Petr Fulín, and also leads the Super 2000 Trophy drivers’ standings by three points.

Richard had been experiencing gearbox issues in free practice, which the team had worked hard to resolve ahead of qualifying, but it re-emerged part-way through the 30-minute qualifying session.

“After the technical problems we had with the gearbox we think we now found the problem and we think we fixed it,” said Richard. “I got out and did some laps and feel I could downshift to the second gear so I came in and put some new tyres on and it worked for two or three laps. I did my fast lap, and after this I wanted to push a little bit more, but at the Nürburgring chicane I lost the backend, hit the tyre wall sideways,” he explained.

“Both windows and both of the doors are completely broken. I hope the guys can fix it and I hope they find the spare parts we need because we don’t have much here. On the one side I am happy, but on another side I am not so happy but with this gearbox problem it’s going to be difficult. I hope we can do something but it’s going to be very difficult to drive a race without second gear. For my guys they now have a lot of work to do and I’m really sorry about that.”