Photo: Super TC 2000 Media

Toyota boss slams Esteban Guerrieri despite San Juan victory

Toyota Team Argentina team principal has slammed driver Esteban Guerrieri despite the 31-year-old’s victory at San Juan, for disobeying team orders and “losing” team-mate Matías Rossi’s chance to win the championship.

Guerrieri and Rossi were running in first and second up until the final lap of the race, when the team gave the order to Guerrieri, who has no realistic chance of the title, to hand over the lead to four-time champion Rossi, while points leader Agustín Canapino was out of the race and set to lose a chunk of his lead.

The position change never came, and Rossi tried to overtake Guerrieri on the track which resulted in contact, and Rossi losing second to Peugeot’s Facundo Chapur, and with Guerrieri almost losing the victory as Chapur made a charge around the last corner to cross the line just 0.031 seconds behind.

“I’m disappointed,” said Toyota Team Argentina team principal Darío Ramonda to Campeones. “We trust in our drivers’ professionalism, and their commitment to follow our orders. Today we lost all our chances of battling for the title. We warned Esteban that he was slowing Matías down and Chapur was getting too close. To hand over the lead on the last lap wouldn’t have been serious. Perhaps he feels he will not continue with us in 2017 and so he’s done this.”

Matías Rossi, still in contention for the title, was also upset over the situation.

“I’m really happy about the pace of my car, but we had a difficult situation with Esteban,” he said. “I asked the team what to do, they told me he was going to let me pass. Since he didn’t and the team got no answer, I decided to try to overtake him by myself, and I nearly crashed into him when I tried.”

Guerrieri however, claimed he was about to let his team-mate through before he tried the pass.

“It was a very intense weekend,” said Guerrieri. “I received the team order (to let Rossi pass), and I was going to let him pass when I considered it was safe…but then there was an unlucky move, so it’s a bitter end, as I expected us to finish first and second.”