Gabriele Tarquini reprimanded for Turkington contact

Gabriele Tarquini was hit with a formal reprimand for contact with 2009 BTCC Champion Colin Turkington at Donington Park in a incident packed day for the Italian.

Tarquini and Turkington were both involved in two incidents together in today’s races at the Donington Park circuit in England. The first incident in race one followed a fantastic start from Tarquini, whom went from 11th on the grid to drive around the outside at Redgate and was up to sixth heading into the Craner Curves.

Whilst trying to pass Colin Turkington into the Craners, the two made slight contact, resulting in Turkington gliding across the inner field and rejoining down the order.

In the second race, first Tarquini was caught up in an incident which took out his SUNRED team-mates Michel Nykjaer and Tiago Monteiro on the first lap.

“I was inside, I was following Alain Menu and these guys were on the outside. I had my chance to be inside in this corner was the best position to be in”, said Tarquini to TouringCarTimes.

In race two, Turkington was spun out of fourth place at the Melbourne Hairpin as Tarquini tried to get a run up the inside, just after Turkington had been passed by a fast charging Alain Menu. In both races the Northern Irishman managed to recover the Wiechers-Sport BMW into the overall points positions in tenth.

The final incident Tarquini was involved in was with Javier Villa and Alain Menu on lap three of race two. Heading into The Esses, Villa was being passed on the outside by Menu whilst Tarquini tried to go down the inside. The two touched, with Villa losing control of his BMW and sliding into Menu, both losing positions.

Tarquini would later lose spots to Tom Coronel, Alain Menu and Robert Dahlgren and end up seventh in the second race.

“Unfortunately I had a big problem with the engine. After two laps I had an oil alarm, the engine was losing oil over the front-left tyres and for this reason the engine wasn’t working correctly and I had big understeer.”

Tarquini’s seventh place plus fifth position in race one moves the 2009 champion up to fifth place in the Championship standings, with SUNRED team-mate Tiago Monteiro falling to sixth with a no score weekend due to the incident in race two and a mechanical problem in race one.

The stewards deemed Tarquini at fault for the incident with Colin Turkington and issued him with a formal reprimand.