British SEAT team Special Tuning Racing will miss the next round of the World Touring Car Championship next month in Argentina due to damage sustained in the first race at Porto, when Tom Boardman and ROAL’s Darryl O’Young came together on the final lap.
The team, whose season has been disrupted after a brake failure at Marrakech wrecked their car in the warm up and then subsequent engine problems in Slovakia and Hungary which saw them miss the two rounds in Argentina and Moscow, will miss their third event of the season by skipping the Santiago del Estero round in the first week of August. The team will instead head straight to Sonoma Raceway for the US round in September.
“I was behind Tiago (Monteiro) and he was struggling a bit, and I thought I’m not going for a crazy last minute lunge and the next minute I’ve got Darryl who wasn’t even really close to me, just lunging up the inside of me and hit me and it’s just totalled the car,” said a frustrated Boardman to TouringCarTimes. “It’s damaged the damper, callipers, wheel, side, bumper, bonnet.”
“I thought he was more sensible than that Darryl, after coming from Le Mans and he then comes into this and just drives straight into you.”
Boardman’s car hit the wall after the contact at Turn 10 taking heavy damage to the right side of the car, and was deemed unrepairable for both race two and the freight to Argentina, and so will return to the UK before being shipped to the USA in September.
ROAL Motorsport’s Darryl O’Young was not punished for the incident, with the stewards deeming that it was a racing incident.
“Nash had a problem on the inside of the corner and (Boardman) went out wide and then I came in and I didn’t expect him to turn down on me,” said O’Young to TouringCarTimes.
“He turned down and I made contact. If he had given me some room there we’d have made it through the corner, but he turned down into the apex at that point I was already there. It’s a shame, we don’t ever want to see drivers go into the wall, but it is what it is, and the stewards saw it as a racing incident.”