Dudukalo punished for collision with Barth

Aleksei Dudukalo has been punished for contact in race two for an incident which took out Swiss team-mate Fredy Barth at Oschersleben, though escapes penalty for contact with Engstler in race one.

The 34-year-old had his first overall points finish since Zolder in the first race, making good progress passing several of the struggling BMW drivers in the wet.

On the final lap, Dudukalo and Engstler made contact which saw the Liqui-Moly Team Engstler driver dropped down the order. Dudukalo finished in ninth place overall and fourth in the independents’ trophy category.

“For me it was a very difficult race, and only the second time I’ve used the 1.6 engine,” said Dudukalo to TouringCarTimes.

“It’s power is too much, the power just comes in after a delay and in the rain it’s really difficult.”

“The BMWs were not really fast, I overtook Michelisz, Coronel and Poulsen and in the last three laps had a bit of a fight with Engstler. One time he pushed me and overtook me at Turn 3, and I retook my position. On the last lap on the corner before last I made a little mistake and touched the gravel and Engstler went inside and we touched and he turned around.”

In race two, Dudukalo was battling with Fredy Barth in the sister SUNRED León and collided at Turn 1, taking Barth out of the race instantly. The unlucky Swiss had already retired in race one due to an alternator failure and so leaves Oschersleben with a double DNF.

The stewards decided to punish Dudukalo hard for this incident, serving the SUNRED driver with a 30 second penalty which drops him to 15th overall and to eighth in the independents’ points positions for race two. The Russian also has a 10 place grid penalty suspended for three events, meaning this isn’t removed until the final round of the season at Macau.