Friction remains between Gabriele Tarquini and Hugo Valente

Castrol Honda Racing’s Gabriele Tarquini and Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente came together at Shanghai, China, during the second race of the tenth FIA World Touring Car Championship event. The Italian and the Frenchman made contact at the start, which triggered a heated discussion after the race.

“I don’t regret saying anything,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes. “I have a lot of respect for Tarquini, he is a World Champion and a phenomenal driver, but he keeps on making contact with people, especially this year. It seems to me like he is driving every race as if it were his last one.”

Valente went on to explain what happened after the race in China:

“He touched me and in the end I had to retire. I was in a good position to take a podium spot and that was a disaster. I hoped he would come to me to apologise, but he never does that. He never admits it is his fault, it’s always someone else’s. I respect him, but he doesn’t feel for me. He apologised to (Lada Sport Rosneft’s) Rob Huff, and the incident was the same, and Gabriele apologised to him. I guess he didn’t do the same with me because I haven’t won a World Championship. Had he just said ‘I am sorry, you lost a potential podium place and retired’, I would have accepted it, but he never said that.”

When asked specifically if he regrets telling the Italian he is ‘too old’, the Frenchman said: “To be honest I don’t really believe that. It is a joke we always make in the paddock with him, because he is obviously the oldest driver on the grid, so maybe sometimes that comes up as a funny thing. I didn’t know what to say because I was shocked, I really thought he would apologise this time. I said that and I am not proud of it, but it doesn’t change the way I feel towards the incident. At that moment I could have said anything else, I just didn’t know what to say.”

The Italian has a completely different view on the incident and the subsequent discussion:

“We made contact, but I would rather call it a touch, and I knew I did not break his suspension with that,” said the Honda driver to TouringCarTimes. “I did not apologise because I had no reason to do that. With Rob (Huff) it was different, because I had broken his suspension, although not intentionally, but I still went to him and told him I was sorry about that and took full responsibility in front of the stewards. Valente made contact with (Citroën’s) Yvan Muller, which broke his suspension, which I only realized after watching Yvan’s on-board footage.”

Going on to the discussion after the race, Tarquini revealed he was not particularly offended when the Frenchman said he is too old: “It is not politically correct and he shouldn’t have done that, but I guess it’s part of one’s good manners. I replied to him just what I thought, that he is too young, meaning he needs more experience. It was his aggressiveness, the way he stopped me on my way to the podium giving me a big pat on my shoulders, taking my hands and so on. I am not getting intimidated by him because he is taller and younger. It really made me angry.”

The Italian revealed another episode happened just before he talked to Valente: “I had his manager stopping me just after I got out of the Parc Fermé. I have nothing to do with this person and I do not know him, and yet he came to me, once again in an aggressive way. If this person has something to say he should talk to the team manager or go to the stewards, not come to me.”

Tarquini says he accepts discussions with other drivers, but not the way it happened with the Frenchman: “Drivers can talk and have different opinions. I have a long career behind me and it happened to me several times, but never in front of the cameras and with such an aggressive way. I have been on both sides and the thing to do when this happens is to cool down a little bit and then just go and talk to the other driver. You can also have a heated discussion, but you always have to keep in mind that you have to respect the other person. I think Valente did it in the wrong place and wrong time. I also don’t like the fact that he went to the stewards and said I had broken his suspension, which simply is not true. The stewards realised that it could not have been me who damaged his car, so much that I got no penalty out of the contact.”