Tenth podium of 2013 for Honda in Russia

Norbert Michelisz secured his fourth podium finish of the 2013 World Touring Car Championship and in the process, the 10^th for Honda in 12 races run to date.

Michelisz has taken a top 3 finish at each of the last four WTCC events to move himself up to 6^th in the overall Championship and second of the Honda drivers. He backed up his race one podium with a fifth place finish in the second race.

“I see this podium of Norbert as a mark of the continuing excellent collaboration between JAS and Zengő Motorsport,” explains William De Braekeleer, Motorsport Manager of Honda Motor Europe.

“JAS is not only committed to provide Zengő with the same specification as Gabriele and Tiago but also the teams are sharing set-up data and I am so pleased that this has worked again perfectly this weekend.”

Gabriele Tarquini also secured a double top 10 finish in the #3 Castrol Honda and added further points to his Championship total, despite falling over 4 race wins behind Championship leader Yvan Muller.

Having lined up fifth on the grid for the opening race at the Moscow Raceway, the Italian secured a battling sixth place finish before lining up fifth for the reverse grid encounter.

Tarquini produced a great start before being shuffled down to 8^th position after a 5 car incident at the first corner which saw 2 cars forced into retirement. He battled back to finish 7^th and secured another six Championship points.

Tiago Monteiro produced two recovery drives from the back of the grid in rounds 11 and 12 but wound up short of the top 10 as he finished 12^th and 13^th in the two races.

“The engines performed exactly as we predicted but in the racing the competition is very close and we are not able to manage other competitors just ourselves,” added Daisuke Horiuchi.

“We must continue to add some performance to the cars at every event. The season has still many races to run and now after Porto we have to travel across the globe so it will be even more difficult to find development time,” concluded the Large Project Leader for WTCC development from Honda R&D.