There’s a certain level of professionalism and respect for the sport that is to be expected of professional athletes, be it the traditional kind of play on the field or the new era of athletes that ply their trade on the circuits of motorsports.
Moe often than not, contact during racing is accidental. No racer in their right mind would try to deliberately hit another participant and face the risk of being banned permanently from the sport. Nonetheless, this wasn’t the case at Silverstone last weekend during one of the rounds of the FIA GT1 series.
The driver of the Aston Martin, Stefan Mucke of the Young Driver team, was clearly unhappy at the driver of the Nissan GT-R, Richard Westbrook, for trying to get on the inside line during a turn and coming into contact with the Aston, bumping it off the track in a spin but not not causing enough damage that the Aston was able to continue racing.
Nonetheless, Mucke got back on track with only revenge on his mind, driving over grass patches and cutting corners just to catch up with Westbrook. When he finally did on the straight, Mucke drove right past the GT-R and purposely grazed its side, sending both cars careening off the track into the wall, hard, ending both their races.
There’s no mistaking Mucke’s intentions were deliberate as he was clearly lining up the GT-R in his sights as he accelerated into the car. The GT-R too was running slow after the earlier incident caused some damage to it.
There’s no word yet on what the race stewards have to say about this but to expect some harsh penalties on Mucke would be an understatement. Don’t be surprised to see such deliberate retaliation be smacked with a temporary or even lifetime ban from the sport.
In Westbrook’s defense, he was only trying to squeeze into the inside line that Mucke had left open on the corner but then realized too late and tried to cover it by cutting back onto the inside line. You can see Westbrook braking hard to avoid contact as his front brakes lock up, sending a plume of smoke up in the air but it wasn’t enough to prevent contact.
This is still not a reason to defend Mucke’s actions and he can expect some serious retribution from the race stewards.
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Source: Jalopnik
