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Honda has been forced to scrap its plans to contest the new-look FIA European Touring Car Championship for this year, according to this week's AUTOSPORT magazine.

The Japanese manufacturer was one of the five car makers to pledge support for the championship's new Super 2000 rules package, but have cited a lack of budget from outside sponsors as the reason for the withdrawal.

"Unfortunately we could not find the funding to continue racing in the ETCC," said Honda Europe's motorsport boss William de Braekeleer. "We will still homologate a car, because there might be private teams who wish to run one, but there will be no official Honda team."

Honda's ETCC works team, JAS Motorsport, finished second to Alfa Romeo's factory Nordauto squad last year. They had already designed and built parts for the Super 2000-spec Civic Type-R.

"We expected bad news but it was still a surprise when it came," said JAS boss Alessandro Mariani. "We will now investigate different solutions for this year. We will see what happens over the next month."

Long-time JAS driver Gabriele Tarquini has also been left high-and-dry by the decision.

"At the moment I am out of the series and looking for another car," he said.

Bron: http://www.autosport.com