Peter Rikli livid with double-penalties at Monza

Rikli Motorsport’s Peter Rikli was upset with the Monza race officials after the Honda driver picked up a pair of penalties in each race, with his ten-second penalty in Race 2 depriving him of a race victory.

The Swiss driver had started from pole position and led the bulk of the first race, only losing out to his team-mate Christjohannes Schreiber on the final lap at the Rettifilo chicane, but neither he nor his team-mate would stand on top of the podium, as both drivers were given a five-second penalty for not starting the race from correctly within their grid spots.

In Race 2, Rikli got a much better start in his Civic TCN2 than the Zengõ SEAT León TCR of Norbert Nagy ahead of him, and dived across the white line to the right to make his way past, which saw him snatch the lead down into the first corner from sixth on the grid.

The officials deemed his start as illegal, and handed him a ten-second penalty which dropped him to third, despite crossing the line in first ahead of his team-mate.

“The main thing for me was the penalties,” said Rikli. “In my opinion, these should not have been given, and this issue needs to be looked into.”

“(On Race 2’s start) I didn’t have any choice,” he explained. “I had to do this to avoid the car in front of me and I shouldn’t get a penalty for trying to avoid a crash, It’s not my fault the car in front of me was slower.”