Honda lodges appeal against the exclusion of Tiago Monteiro

Tiago Monteiro was excluded from his race two victory in the FIA World Touring Car Championship race weekend in Thailand due to failing the ride height test. Honda have confirmed they plan to appeal the decision of the stewards in the hope of reinstating the Portuguese driver’s third win of the year.

The team claim the ride height test failure was directly due to damage from an incident in the first race, and that no performance advantage was gained.

“I feel really sorry for Tiago, who made a fantastic race. The team did everything possible to repair the car in the short time before the second race. Of course we checked the ground clearance after the repair and it was perfect,” said Alessandro Mariani, Castrol Honda team principal.

The appeal will be heard by the FIA International Court of Appeal. No information has been released on when a decision is expected to be taken, except that it should happen within the next few weeks. The next, and final, round of the WTCC takes place on November 27th in Qatar.

”In our eyes Tiago deserves this win and we are appealing the decision because the infringement was a product of accident damage from race one and not a deliberate misinterpretation of the regulations. We hope to collect enough evidence of our good faith to present to the FIA International Court of Appeal,” added Mariani.