Gianni Morbidelli apologises for ‘unacceptable mistake’

Gianni Morbidelli looked all set for a dominant win in Race 1 at Buriram, Thailand, before Race Control handed him a drive through penalty for a jump start. The Italian managed to get back up to tenth, but that was little consolation as the Italian feels he would have won the race.

“I can only apologise to the team for an unacceptable mistake at the start of Race 1,” said the WestCoast Racing driver to TouringCarTimes. “I moved from my spot on the grid and the result was I got a drive through penalty. It’s a shame because I threw away a win and it would have been important for the team, and also a nice birthday present for my engineer Paul Ridgeway.”

Talking about the second race the Italian was very disappointed, as he broke the engine due to overheating: “When Hugo Valente had his problem they should have sent us out for another formation lap. On the grid the engine temperatures went sky high and from then on, although I tried to stay out of the slipstream to try to help the engine to cool down, it finally gave up. It’s another good result lost, and it’s been one of those bad days.”

WestCoast Racing have a spare of the new ‘Step 2’ engine, which is likely to be used in Macau instead of the current engine being rebuilt.