Hugo Valente and Mehdi Bennani both punished for race two incidents

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente and Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani have both been given 30-second penalties by the stewards in respect of two incidents which took place in the second race in Marrakech, which drops them to ninth and 12th in the final order.

The two made contact twice during the race, with the stewards ultimately deciding both parties are responsible for each respective incident. Bennani and Valente first came together on lap seven, which saw Bennani fall almost ten seconds behind, but was able to make up the ground over the next six laps and have another go to take fifth from the Frenchman on the penultimate lap, where the two came together again at Turn 4, with Bennani now with damaged rear tyres falling back into the clutches of Norbert Michelisz, where he was passed on the following lap as well as by the Münnich Chevrolet of Stefano D’Aste and the Honda of Gabriele Tarquini.

Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente clearly placed the blame for both incidents at the hands of the Moroccan.

“First he’s going 10km/h faster than everybody in the straights and then he brakes 10 meters later and he brakes and then he directs his car towards me, I can’t disappear so we touched and he went sideways,” said Valente to TouringCarTimes.

“In the last five laps I was just trying to get home as we had so much brake fading, but he came back like crazy, I think he wanted to prove a point and just hit me a second time. Even if we hadn’t touched, he’d never have made it through the corner…he’s just impatient and needs to have more composure. When I was in front of López, I was closing the door each corner, but he just waited for me to make one little mistake and he passed.”

Bennani saw the other side and held Valente accountable for both contacts.

“My two contacts were with Valente. I was trying to overtake very clean, but it’s very easy when you are going down the inside (for the other car) to touch your rear tyres,” said Bennani. “After the first contact I was then about eight seconds behind him but with two laps to go I was trying to overtake him but another time but he did the same manouevre. I think the stewards will do their work and we’ll see what happens.”