Yvan Muller sorry for incident with Alex MacDowall

Three-time champion Yvan Muller was involved in an incident with Bamboo Engineering’s Alex MacDowall on the fourth lap of the second race, which saw an extended safety car period interrupt the final race of the season.

The Frenchman clipped the rear of MacDowall’s Chevrolet Cruze through the fast right-hand Mandarin bend, which spun MacDowall into the wall and into a spin, with the car sustaining severe damage, but MacDowall was able to walk away unharmed. The safety car was called, which held the field for five laps whilst the car and debris was cleared.

“Of course I’m sorry, but from my point (of view) I couldn’t have done much,” said Muller to TouringCarTimes after the race. “(MacDowall) was fighting with Oriola, he went into the corner and he missed the apex by a good metre and then he went sideways. At this place you should be flat-out, he was probably 10 or 15km/h slower than the lap before, which I wasn’t expecting, and when I saw that I tried to slow down and brake, it’s not the right place to brake but I still tried, and to keep to the right as much as I could on the circuit, but we touched.”

MacDowall, who had been leading the race earlier on before making an error and allowing Alain Menu’s Chevrolet and the two independents’ title competitors Norbert Michelisz and Pepe Oriola through, was very upset about the incident.

“I’d started hustling Oriola, and had to back off into Mandarin to try and get a run,” said MacDowall to TouringCarTimes. “Then all of a sudden Muller misjudged the situation, blaming me for going 15km/h slower through there, but I had to. I was quicker than Pepe in the tow, he was going to go through there slower because I’d made him defend, then all of a sudden I’m in the wall, steering straight and bang. He should have got disqualified for that, that was a huge shunt.”

The incident was investigated by the stewards, and they ruled that it was a racing incident and that no action was necessary.