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Upset voices after confused Donington start

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The start of the second British Touring Car Championship race at Donington Park left many confused. As Andrew Jordan’s car cut out at the end of the formation lap, a “start delayed” board was shown.
Normal routine would mean a completely new restart with a formation lap and the driver responisble for the delay be sent to the back of the grid. Neither of these happened!

“I didn’t understand the situation. I expected (a wait of) three minutes and another green flag lap, so I switched off the engine,” said Fabrizio Giovanardi to Autosport.

But instead of a restart a 30 second board was shown almost instantly and the race was restarted without a formation lap. Giovanardi was lucky enough to get his Vauxhall Vectra started again and was ready for the restart.
“I saw 30 seconds and switched it on again and asked them (the team) what to do. Nobody understood what was happening,” said Giovanardi.

Giovanardi’s team mate Matt Neal on the other hand was affected. The Brit started second but dropped to eight as he had neutral selected, waiting for a green flag, when the start went. This left team boss Ian Harrison mildly irritated.

“We were told one thing and something else happened. I don’t know why the change was made. I just could not get on the radio to Matt quickly enough because the channel was being used,” said Harrison.

Adding to the catalogue of errors over the weekend, the driver responsible for the delay, Andrew Jordan, was left in his grid position and to the annoyance of some of the independents teams, went onto to take the class win!

It is understood that certain teams have been vocal in their concerns over various incidents that have happened recently.

BTCC boss Alan Gow did not feel that the situation was out of control and said that the race control informed all teams of what was happening.
“We didn’t want to delay the race any further, so we advised the teams by radio that it was going to be a race start. All the teams got the one minute countdown, so they were all informed what was happening,” said Gow.