Néstor Girolami “really disappointed” with Jean-Karl Vernay after Slovakiaring crash

Néstor Girolami escaped the high-speed incident with Jean-Karl Vernay at the Slovakiaring unharmed, but states that he is “really disappointed” in the Alfa Romeo driver.

“I feel really disappointed with JK,” said Girolami.

“I was hit by him at the start, which made me lose three positions. I can understand this because it was the first lap, but I thought he would take more care afterwards and not put me in a bad situation.”

The Münnich Motorsport driver hit the barriers at well over 100km/h, leaving his Honda Civic Type-R TCR badly damaged and a race against time for his mechanics as the next race is less than one week away.

“First of all, I am OK, which is the most important thing in any incident like this,” said Girolami.

“It was a really big impact and obviously the car was heavily damaged, so the fact that I was able to return to the circuit this evening is testament to the safety level JAS Motorsport has achieved with the Honda Civic Type-R TCR and also the preparation from Münnich Motorsport, so big thanks to them both.

“The incident itself was a big disappointment; I had already been hit by the same driver at the start of the race, so I really thought he would take more care in that situation. It also puts us on the back foot as we have very little time to prepare for the next round, but we will come back fighting.”

Team Mulsanne driver Vernay meanwhile stated that the blame for the incident was not to land on him.

“Not happy about what happened in Race 2, the fight was completely unnecessary and what I wanted to say is to make sure that Néstor is doing well, even if I don’t have to apologise for anything about that, but I hope he is doing well,” said Vernay.

“It is not the thing I like, when people are getting so aggressive. It happened to me five times on the first lap. I’m happy to leave and to go back home, I still have it [in my heart] and I didn’t appreciate all of this.”