WSR upset with ‘harshest penalty this year’
WSR are upset with the three part penalty imposed on Andy Neate after a race three clash with Andrew Jordan’s Pirtek Racing Vectra.
Andy Neate was hit with four penalty points, exclusion from the result and a six place grid drop for the next round, for an incident which saw the Pirtek Racing entry lying on top of a tyre barrier.
The clash occurred on lap eight of the third race.
“Andrew Jordan made a mistake at the hairpin, I went to capitalise on this and unfortunately we came together, putting him out of the race.” explained Neate.
“I did lift after the initial impact and the TOCA data-logging confirmed this. However the Clerk of the Course considered that I didn’t stay off the throttle for long enough and that’s why they penalised me.”
Jordan explained the incident from his perspective:
“I had two run-ins with Neate in the last race and the second one he just went into the side of me” said Jordan
“So I was sandwiched between the two WSR cars which turned me round into the wall and ended my race.”
WSR team boss Dick Bennetts believes the penalty was excessive, explaining:
“We felt the penalty against Andy was far too harsh and appealed against it accordingly. Unfortunately you can’t bring up other incidents in these appeals, but far worse acts have occurred this year with much lesser penalties applied, so where is the consistency?”
Jordan’s weekend was strewn with bad luck, which saw him miss qualifying and start from the back, retire from race one with oil pressure problems, and in race two finished a lap down after having to pit to repair a dislodged pipe.
The race three incident meant Andrew Jordan took no points from the weekend, and has now dropped to joint 12th in the championship.
After his exclusion, Andy Neate also came away from the weekend with no points, though the West Surrey Racing team did pick-up a hard fought podium position in the first race with Rob Collard, as well as an eight in race three. Collard is placed eighth in the championship with 52 points, one point ahead of Team Aon’s Tom Chilton.
