Gabriele Tarquini admits fault for Hugo Valente & Rob Huff incident

Lada Sport driver Gabriele Tarquini accepted the blame for the accident which knocked Rob Huff off the circuit and down to last at the start of race two, with the Italian the one mostly losing out after the stewards handed him a drive-through penalty.

The weekend was below expectations for the 2009 champion, missing out on the top ten in qualifying, and then being eliminated from the opening race an in incident with Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Grégoire Demoustier.

The car was repaired in time for the main race within the short 15-minute repair time, but Tarquini then ploughed into team-mate Hugo Valente at the first turn at the start, cannoning him into Rob Huff’s Honda Civic, with the British driver forced to drive through the field from last to finish sixth.

“In the second race, the car was almost straight,” said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes “Unfortunately I made a mistake on the start. The start was good, but I was looking out my side and missed my braking point and went very strongly into Hugo, and Hugo went into Rob and Rob, went off, and so I was penalised.”

Tarquini’s first race was also cut short despite a promising start, battling with López during the opening stages before being knocked out of contention.

“I was in the middle of the pack fighting with people,” he said. “I had a good fight with López on the first two laps, I overtook him two times, he overtook me three times. The car was very good, I had pace until the seventh lap but then I had this accident. Demoustier just went straight into me at the first corner and destroyed my suspension and the doors.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dUj0Q-5AR8