Javier Villa gets grid drop for Donington Park

Javier Villa has been punished with a grid penalty of five places for the incident with Fredy Barth at the beginning of race one, which took out both Barth and his SUNRED team-mate Aleksei Dudukalo.

The Proteam Racing driver was trying to pass the Swiss-driver on the opening lap down into the first chicane, and then made contact with Barth’s SR León 1.6T, which spun around on the circuit and was collected by his Russian team-mate.

“Javier Villa touched Fredy, (I came around the corner and) I didn’t have space, I try to turn it left, left but didn’t have space and broke the car,” said Dudukalo to TouringCarTimes.

“He saw a gap that didn’t exist,” said Barth.

“He was behind me, we all came to the first chicane, we were all on the right side and he thought that the green line and the wall is considered as track probably. There was like 1m90 space and his car was maybe 1m89 large and just got into it over the line, over the kerb and then he pushed me out in the chicane. For me it’s just over-excitement.”

Javier Villa crashed out on lap seven, and had to start from the back of the grid for race two as the team repaired his car. The race was uncompetivie for the young Spaniard however, as he struggled with a broken shock absorber, finishing in 17th place after his team-mate’s penalty.

As he didn’t finish the race, the stewards are unable to serve him with a drive-through penalty and have given Villa a five place drop on the grid for the next race at Donington Park instead, with an additional 10 place drop suspended for two races.

Villa’s reaction to the incident can be read here