Battle-scarred Audi of Gordon Shedden scores Wuhan Race 3 win
Gordon Shedden took his first World Touring Car Cup victory in the third race at Wuhan, despite a contact-heavy race in which saw the WRT Audi twice hit by Audi rival Denis Dupont.
Shedden’s Team WRT squad were already in a race against time to repair his car after it was damaged at the start of Race 1, when he was propelled into the barriers at Turn 3 and broke his steering.
The team managed to repair the car and get it back out for the start of Race 3 so he could start from pole position. From there he led into Turn 1m though took a hit from Denis Dupont’s Comtoyou Racing Audi, who put the nose of his car down the inside of the corner.
Shedden held onto the slide while Dupont and Frédéric Vervisch behind were slowed up, with the Münnich Honda of Esteban Guerrieri driving down the escape route and up to second.
The race was soon suspended behind the safety car when the DG Sport Peugeot of Aurélien Comte and WRT Audi’s Jean-Karl Vernay made contact, with Comte’s becoming stuck in the barriers and was in turn collected by a number of chasing cars, including SLR Volkswagen’s Rob Huff, DG Sport’s Mat’o Homola, Mulsanne Alfa’s Fabrizio Giovanardi and the Münnich Honda of Timo Scheider.
The race was held for seven laps behind the safety car as the cars of Homola, Comte and Huff were recovered, while Guerrieri was ordered to hand back second and third to the two Comtoyou cars due to cutting the circuit.
When the race resumed, Vernay was immediately handed a drive-through penalty for the incident, which put the Audi driver out of contention for the points.
On lap ten, Dupont lost control of his Audi at Turn 10 and slammed into the tyre stack at the apex of the corner, catapulting it into Shedden’s car, who was able to continue on despite even further damage.
Dupont now fell behind team-mate Vervisch, who took up the position as the safety car was again deployed to replace the tyre stack.
When the race resumed for a final time, Comtoyou Racing’s Nathanael Berthon soon passed Pepe Oriola’s Cupra for fifth and then closed on Guerrieri’s Honda, which had a damaged, dragging exhaust, but was unable to find a way past.
Shedden went on to win the race in close quarters ahead of Vervisch, with Dupont taking his second Race 3 podium result in a week.
Team Mulsanne’s Kevin Ceccon scored another points finish for Alfa Romeo in eighth, while the best-placed Hyundai was the YMR entry of Thed Björk in tenth, who now moves back one place clear ahead of team-mate Yvan Muller.
Gabriele Tarquini still leads the championship on 241 points, now seven clear of Björk and eight of Muller, while a strong weekend for Pepe Oriola sees the Spaniard move up to fourth in the drivers’ standings, 34 points behind with Jean-Karl Vernay two points further adrift.
The next round of the World Touring Car Cup takes place at Suzuka in Japan on October 27th-28th.
