Sergey Afanasyev “didn’t mean to hurt Gianni Morbidelli” in Q1 scrap

Gianni Morbidelli hit the wall in the first segment of qualifying, which forced the Italian to sit out of most of the remainder of the session. The former Grand Prix driver just kissed the wall on the inside, which sent him hard into the barriers on the outside, damaging the rear of his Honda Civic TCR.

Although the WestCoast Racing driver does not directly blame Sergey Afanasyev for the incident, the Italian admits the Craft-Bamboo driver distracted him: “I’m not looking for excuses for my Q1 mistake, but I had (Sergey) Afansyev in front of me, and I don’t know why he was so stubborn in trying to stay ahead”, said the Italian to TouringCarTimes. “As I imagined I caught him quite quickly, and I started thinking about aborting the lap. That thought may have distracted me. The accident is not his fault, but he could have played it differently.”

When asked to explain the incident, Afanasyev was surprised he had disturbed Morbidelli, as he never meant to get in the Italian’s way. The Russian said to TouringCarTimes his focus was on keeping close to team-mate James Nash instead: “Honestly I didn’t care where he (Morbidelli) was, I was just trying to go forward as I wanted to stay close to James (Nash). I’m sorry it disturbed him, but he’s quite an experienced driver and so it sounds a bit strange to me. I didn’t mean to hurt him in any way, I was just looking ahead.”

Morbidelli finished qualifying in sixth, while Afansyev will start from eighth for tomorrow’s first race.