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Petr Fulín accuses Honda of running an unfair launch control system

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013 ETCC S2000 drivers’ champion Petr Fulín has accused the Honda Civics of Rikli Motorsport of running a system which gives them a competitive at the starts, which is permissible as the Civics run to a separate homologation.

Although the Honda Civic TCR car is also known for their strong starts in the various TCR series, the Civic TCN2, at its core the same car, has shown lightning pace in the first two events of the season, with Christjohannes Schreiber and Peter Rikli able to drive straight to the front even from the back of the reversed grid.

“I’m very not satisfied that the Honda uses TCN2 homologation, as both Hondas have some special start system which is not allowed by TCR,” said Fulín to TouringCarTimes. “SEAT, Volkswagen and Audi have made the decision (not to invest in such a system), as the important thing is sport, but the Hondas change a lot of things. There’s a reason why they go from eighth and are able to be first in the first corner.”

Although Fulín admitted he struggled at the weekend with set-up on his car, he was also unhappy at the mix of weights throughout the field, with the older-specification SEATs and Rikli’s 2016-spec Hondas able to run 10kg lighter as part of Balance of Performance.

“If you check the BoP, we are the heaviest car not counting success ballast,” explained Fulín. “That’s why we would like to speak with the promoter. I tried to organise a meeting on Friday concerning BoP as I expected we’d use TCR BoP, you can see that TCR only recognise one car of Honda, but ETCC separate the 2016 and 2017 Hondas, which is why they’re 10kg less.

“We also have the V3 (SEAT), but I don’t believe the difference between the V3 and V2 is that much beyond some software for steering. I felt inside the car when I drove behind Norbert (Nagy) and (Alexandr) Artemyev, that I was not able to keep the same speed during the straights.”