Monday 3rd August 2015

Motorsport on Monday: 03/08/2015

Audi's 'push him out' DTM storm

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This one's a bit awkward. In a tight battle at a rainy Red Bull Ring, Audi driver Timo Scheider responded to being cynically boxed in by the Mercedes-AMGs of Robert Wickens and Pascal Wehrlein with what was described on TV as 'a snooker move'; under braking, he hit the back of Wickens, who then hit Wehrlein, who both span off and became beached in the gravel trap. Scheider went on to finish sixth.

"Oh Lord, what have I done?"

A bit unsporting - but then a TV replay aired some in-car radio for Scheider, with the message 'schieb ihn raus!': translated, that's 'push him out!'. Given to Scheider, um, just before he pushed Wickens out. And the really awkward bit? After initially denying it, Audi Sport boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich admitted it was him saying the words.

Yes, Dr. Ullrich, who's masterminded Audi's Le Mans 24 Hours domination, and is one of the most admired and highly respected brains in the sports car paddock. And now it's all kicking off, with Scheider excluded from the race and a possible hearing for Audi Sport to answer why it gave an 'unsporting instruction' being referred to German motorsport organising body DMSB's court of appeal.

No BMW domination here with two Audi wins

Dr. Ullrich later apologised; he said it doesn't reflect his idea of motorsport and was an adrenalin-fuelled reaction because he felt the Mercs were playing games to penalise Scheider. He also added that he doesn't communicate directly with the drivers, so didn't realise his words would be heard in the cockpit.

For his part, Scheider said he didn't hear the message, despite TV footage showing him taking him out shortly after getting a message to take him out. It's all a bit ugly. Not least the Twitter #schiebihnraus stream. We haven't heard the last of this one, by any means.

Flying Finland
Jari-Matti Latvala won his second Rally Finland in succession this weekend, edging ahead of the superhuman Sebastien Ogier (even coming second, he still heads the championship by an extended 89 points...). Mads Ostberg joined them on the podium after another small but costly mistake by Kris Meeke damaged a wheel and dropped him to fourth.

Latvala wins; still a long way behind Ogier

As always Finland was hard on cars and crashes were numerous; Kubica, Mikkelsen, Paddon, Sordo, Tanak and Evans all had incidents. At least Tanak will have curried some favour back from M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson, coming home fifth.

The events among the frontrunners saw some unfamiliar names in the top 10 too: well done, Lorenzo Bertelli, scoring his first 10th place in his privateer FWRT s.r.l car, behind the two Skoda WRC2 cars of Lappi and Tidemand.

IndyCar: squeaky bum time for Montoya
Juan Pablo Montoya's lead in the IndyCar championship is slowly being eroded. With two races to go, it's down to nine points, after Graham Rahal saw off a strong challenge from Justin Wilson to win the Mid-Ohio race.

Montoya could (should?) still win Indycar

Montoya was down in 11th, after being caught out by an ill-timed yellow flag period - although the fact Ganassi's Sage Karem apparently spun all by himself, at a particularly poorly-timed point for some drivers, has led IndyCar officials to conduct a post-race investigation. Team tactics? Might Audi not be the only ones potentially culpable of foul play this weekend?

All to play for at the next two races at Pocono and Sonoma then: can Montoya pull off what would be a popular championship win?

Superhuman Zanardi
I've written it before and it's extremely pleasing to write it again: Alex Zanardi is unbelievable. This weekend, he won another three (three!) gold medals and three world titles in the 2015 UCI Paracycling World Championships.

No stopping him!

He first won the team relay as part of the Italian national team, then defended his time trial world title, before becoming 2015 world champion in the road race discipline - taking his para-cycling world title haul up to eight. And all this just one week after racing the Spa 24 Hours with a BMW Z4 GT3, while his para-cycling rivals were off training!

Zanardi's latest wins count towards qualifying for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio as well, meaning he could be in with a shot of defending his London 2012 gold medal. Words are beyond describing what a hero Alessandro Zanardi is: so here's a short film instead.

[Alex Zanardi Photo credit: UCI]

[PhantomPH]

10 rating for Zanardi. What a guy!