Honda will appeal the decision to exclude Tiago Monteiro from victory in the second World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) race in Thailand, where his Civic failed the post-race ride height check.
Monteiro originally took the finish ahead of Sébastien Loeb in the red-flagged race at the Chang International Circuit in Buriram.
However the Portuguese driver was later excluded from the results for failing to have a minimum 60 mm ground clearance on his Honda Civic car.
Monteiro and his JAS motorsport team have confirmed their intention to appeal the decision on the grounds that the failure was caused by accident damage in race one.
“I feel really sorry for Tiago, who made a fantastic race,” said JAS Managing Director Alessandro Mariani. “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. 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.”
We won it on track but got desqualified due to technical problem. 100% good faith so will appeal to court. Heads up! pic.twitter.com/KsbZ6qunCV
— Tiago Monteiro (@Tiagosworld18) November 2, 2015