Yvan Muller blames López for start-line crash in Austria

Citroën’s Yvan Muller has blamed his team-mate José María López for the accident at the start of the second race at the Salzburgring which eliminated the four-time champion from the race, as well as the two Ladas of James Thompson and Rob Huff, which require extensive repairs ahead of the next round at the Moscow Raceway.

Muller had been edged out onto the grass as he tried to move down the inside of López’s Citroën C-Elysée into the first corner, and when he rejoined he lost control of the car and tapped into the side of the Lada Granta of James Thompson, which then ran into Rob Huff’s car alongside and they both spun out and were destroyed.

Muller’s Citroën also clambered into the barriers on the right side of the track, damaging his right-rear wheel, but he was able to recover the car to the pit lane so the team could carry out repairs under the red flag.

“I had a good start, Pechito was alongside Chilton and I was trying to get past and he closed the door on me,” said Muller after the race.

In response to López’s comments that the Argentinian never saw Muller or was even aware of the accident, Muller sharply remarked “Well, next time I won’t see him.”

Although the team had already conducted a debriefing with the three drivers, Muller said that he still hadn’t decided to talk to López about the incident.

After five meetings, Muller is still second in the standings, but is now 41 points adrift with 55 the maximum available for a weekend. In terms of his strategy going forward, Muller responded:
“Strategy? Five meetings and I’ve had three DNFs already, more than I had the last few years. There’s no strategy, I’ll just try and drive my best and hope he will have some bad luck as well.”

López, the catalyst in the incident, although no contact was actually made between Yvan and his car, said he was completely unaware of the accident until the team informed him.

“Chilton had a worse start than me, so I tried to pass him and go straight to the first corner and hope nobody hit me,” said López. “I braked really late on the outside line and passed two cars, and then after that was the safety car. I saw the two Ladas were destroyed, and then later on the team told me also Yvan had a problem.”

After the race had finished, López realised that Muller had held him to account for the accident.

“I knew he was upset, but I didn’t know why,” he said. “It’s a very difficult start, it’s a very difficult circuit, the only thing I did was keep my line, I didn’t even feel a touch next to me. We try to act as clean as we can. Yvan is a friend, and I’m very happy to be working with him, and if he has something to tell me, we’ll discuss it of course. For me it’s a bit of a surprise to find it now, I think it would be better to wait and speak with him about this.”

James Thompson’s Lada was heavily damaged as a result of the contact, with the team having a hard task to fix the car for their home race in Moscow.

“I had an amazing start, but Yvan was pushed off by one of his team-mates, he rejoined, had a tank-slapper and took me out and that was it,” said Thompson to TouringCarTimes. “It was disappointing, why are the guys with the three fastest cars pushing themselves on to the grass? We were lucky no one was hurt, it was a stupid accident.”