*Time penalty for Tarquini error cancels out Honda victory
*Russian squad had outpaced Japanese firm in close battle
*Newcomer Chilton completes Citroën line-up

Honda came out on top of a dramatic Manufacturers Against the Clock team time trial at FIA WTCC ROSNEFT Race of Russia this afternoon as LADA was denied an almost perfect day.

Having dominated qualifying with drivers Nicky Catsburg, Gabriele Tarquini and Hugo Valente claiming an historic 1-2-3, LADA returned to the track shortly afterwards and looked set to celebrate a maiden WTCC MAC3 victory with a benchmark effort of 4m04.355s, only for Tarquini to be handed a 30-second penalty for a false start.

In what is a team-based competition with all drivers racing together against the clock, a mistake by one member can have serious consequences for the rest of the squad, which proved to be the case for LADA. However, there were no such problems for Honda, whose drivers Tiago Monteiro, Rob Huff and Norbert Michelisz scored its third outright success of the season, earning the make 10 points towards the FIA WTCC Manufacturers’ championship.

Honda, which ran second in the Tour de France-inspired challenge, had trailed LADA by 0.649s but was promoted to top spot when the Russian team was penalised. As leaders of the Manufacturers’ championship, Citroën ran last but was clocked over three seconds off the pace after Yvan Muller struggled in the damp conditions to keep up with José María López and had to let WTCC MAC3 debutant Tom Chilton past. It was eventually classified second.