A catfight breaks out in the WTCR

With just three rounds to go in the 2019 WTCR — FIA World Touring Car Cup, it’s starting getting rough between the two sleeper factory teams of Hyundai and Lynk & Co in the championship, after drivers Nicky Catsburg and Andy Priaulx clashed in Race 1 at Suzuka, with both drivers getting penalised in the aftermath.

The incident

Coming into the final laps of the race, Priaulx was running in 13th place, in the lower points-paying positions (points go down to 15th in the WTCR), in his Cyan Racing-run Lynk & Co 03 TCR, while at-that-point championship leader Norbert Michelisz was running behind him in his BRC Racing Team-run Hyundai i30 N TCR.

Michelisz then allowed Catsburg by, with the Dutchman not in the championship hunt, to mount an attack on Priaulx, one of the three Lynk & Cos ahead.

At the start of lap 22, Catsburg made his move down the main straight, towing behind Priaulx’s car as the two veered to the right side of the track with Priaulx trying to cover the inside line.

The two made contact into the corner, with Catsburg clipping the rear of Priaulx’s car, which ran straight off into the tyre barriers at the exit, and the safety car was called, with no time left to restart the race with just five laps remaining, and with some time needed to extract Priaulx’s car and replace the barriers.

An angry Priaulx stormed towards the track and gesticulated at both Michelisz and Catsburg in anger as they came by on the following lap.

Münnich Motorsport’s Esteban Guerrieri went on to take the win, and with it reclaimed the lead of the championship, while Michelisz finished 13th, having quickly swapped positions back with Catsburg after the incident, who finished 14th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC3cdewnE_0

What they said

Priaulx was quick to blast Catsburg, laying the blame firmly at Catsburg’s door.

Andy Priaulx:

“I was in my position, and Norbi (Michelisz) was behind me, the next thing they swapped positions, and then snap I get a huge impact from behind, and then they swapped positions back again, so for me it looked really bad. It was a big hit, and it wasn’t necessary. It’s a lot of work for the guys, and it’s a bad example of professional driving. There should be a huge penalty for that, cos that could really hurt, not only the drivers, but also the marshals, spectators.

“It was the fastest part of the circuit and I could have hit Yann, but I also hit a marshals’ post. It was a big impact, a huge hit from behind at or just before the braking zone…if I was Catsburg I would be very embarrassed.

“He’s the last person I want to speak to, definitely. He should just crawl in a hole for what he’s done, it’s just not professional behaviour, but he’s chosen to go down that path, and you make your bed, you lie in it. I hope he gets a huge penalty; it was very much like using a car as a weapon. And that’s a very bad example for all the young drivers.

“In terms of the championship, it’s a professional series and with manufacturers headlining the series, they need to look very carefully at the driving standards, and their needs to be huge penalties for accidents like that.”

Nicky Catsburg defended himself, explaining that from his perspective, he was caught out by Priaulx braking unexpectedly early into the first corner.

Nicky Catsburg:

“I’m disappointed with what happened, but for me it was very clear what happened. I don’t know what Andy was thinking, but he hit the brakes so unbelievably early, and I can’t anticipate the driver doing something like that. It’s a shame he was so angry, as I really like Andy…it’s a shame as he ended up in the wall, but I can’t anticipate something like that.

“I hope we will have a chat about it, and for sure we’ll have to explain ourselves to the race direction. I like Andy, and I know he thinks I fired him off, but I didn’t.

“I don’t see why he would say that (I did it deliberately), as what would be my benefit to smash him off? We’re both not in the championship, we were fighting for P-nowhere — I don’t understand why he thinks I would blast him off. He’s entitled to his opinion, but I think he’s wrong.”

The Cyan Racing team added extra detail to Priaulx’s on-air words in their race day statement, with Priaulx now having called for Catsburg to be banned for the remainder of the season.

The team then went to the unusual effort to put together a video on social media, in which Priaulx directly accused Catsburg of having committed a “professional foul”, on the basis of the Dutchman having swapped positions with his team-mate, and then having hit him less than a lap later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1A_o6dLsJM

“I know what I need to do, but I’ll do it in a sporting way. I won’t be unsporting. I’ll just be very hard to pass, but I won’t intentionally drive anyone off the road, that’s not my style. I know that there’s other drivers around that don’t seem to mind doing that, but that’s not the way I work.

“What he did was a professional foul, to swap positions, then to hit me the next lap and then to swap back the next lap, that shows you what his intention is, it’s disappointing behaviour, very disappointing.”

Officials’ reaction

The stewards investigated the incident, and found Catsburg responsible for the contact, and gave him a drive-through penalty, which was converted into a 30-second time penalty, dropping him from 14th to 23rd. They also gave him a two-point endorsement on his racing licence, with the justification of “Car #88 (Catsburg) caused a collision with car #111 (Priaulx) before T1. As a result car #111 ran into the gravel bed of T1 and hit the barrier, which caused the Safety Car deployment.”

Priaulx was also penalised for his post-incident behaviour, with the stewards’ decision citing: “Following incident with the car the driver was gesticulating in a manner that would bring the Sport and the Cup in disrepute” in breach of Article 12.1.1 c) of the FIA International Sporting Code, and given a 1,000 EUR fine.

Priaulx was also given a reprimand for a infringement at the start of the race when he crossed the pit exit line, which put him up to his three-reprimand target, and which has earned him a grid penalty for the next race.

Analysis — it’s getting hot in here

First, stepping back and assessing the scene — it’s important to note the tension between the drivers, and most notably the manufacturers’ themselves in the past few rounds, is representative of the pressure behind the two marques to win this year’s title at all costs.

Last year, Hyundai driver Gabriele Tarquini won the inaugural WTCR title by a whisker, and while technically Yvan Muller, then also driving a Hyundai was the only other driver really in the frame, that wouldn’t quite have gone down as the win Hyundai Motorsport were after, as Muller’s car was run by YMR, basically an R&D project for Cyan Racing — who are now running the Lynk & Co WTCR programme.

This year, Hyundai Motorsport and Lynk & Co both have the clear goal of winning the title — this may sound obvious, but the concept of WTCR is theoretically “customer racing”, but the BRC Racing Team and Cyan Racing outfits are both fully-integrated offshoots of each manufacturer’s motorsport arms, and their more challenging performance targets compared to their Honda and Volkswagen Group rivals are abundantly clear.

You can see how, especially over the last two events, that each of the two manufacturers are attempting to unsettle each other, both on the track and off.

Last month in China, BRC Racing Team driver Gabriele Tarquini was causing tension through his outspoken criticism of the championship’s Balance of Performance changes ahead of the race, which had reportedly benefitted Lynk & Co, which caused Yvan Muller to fire back at his friend and former team-mate in the post-race press conference following his Race 3 victory.

Heading into the Japan event, Lynk & Co went into the event almost expecting trouble, firing a warning shot with their pre-event release, with the team’s top points-scorer Yvan Muller stating:

“”I have no doubt that the title fight will be very tough and that it will escalate this weekend.

“We saw a lot of incidents at Ningbo, but we are confident that the WTCR organisation will make sure that the fights will be fair in the coming races.”

Driving standards were already a hot topic last month in China, with Nicky Catsburg and Andy Priaulx both commenting on driving standards after the races, when early race leader Priaulx was taken out of Race 2 after an incident with BRC Racing Team’s Norbert Michelisz.

Speaking at Ningbo, China — Andy Priaulx told this writer:

“At the moment, it’s crazy. I’ve had so many races this year ended through contact. In that last race, after that contact, my car was fucked.

“I don’t remember it being quite so stupid. They need to be very strict on the standards — they need to give instant drive-throughs for bad driving.

Reflecting on the Ningbo Race 2 incident, you can see both parallels with what just happened in Japan, and also the likely rationale for the position swap between Catsburg and Michelisz.

Priaulx had been leading the race, with Michelisz hot on his tail, but Priaulx proved to be hard to pass, while at this point Michelisz was followed by his Hyundai team-mate Gabriele Tarquini — the two did not swap positions, despite Tarquini being effectively out of the title fight.

As the race drew on, Priaulx’s driving was more erratic, reportedly due to a slow puncture but this was never confirmed. Eventually Priaulx and Michelisz made contact, with Priaulx out of the race and Michelisz enduring a scare — both as to whether his i30 N TCR was damaged, or if the Hungarian would be penalised.

In the stewards’ investigation in China, Priaulx was found to have braked unexpectedly early, and that Michelisz couldn’t have anticipated this and the accident was called a racing incident.

Then, just two races later, Catsburg replays Michelisz’s defence after his contact with Priaulx, stating that the British driver braked too early into Turn 1.

By reviewing the footage, you can see some potential truth to his claim. Priaulx was certainly on the brakes several car lengths earlier than his Cyan Racing team-mate Yann Ehrlacher, who was just ahead on the road. At the same time Priaulx had driven to the far right of the circuit in order to defend the inside line, so it becomes a little more ambiguous to define whether Priaulx had judged the correct braking point for the alternative line into the corner.

You can see in the image below the incident between Priaulx and Catsburg already well underway, while Ehrlacher just ahead still hasn’t begun braking into the corner.

The next point to address is that Priaulx made about Michelisz and Catsburg swapping positions, claiming Catsburg was effectively being used as a sacrificial lamb to take Priaulx’s car.

Given the contact between Priaulx and Michelisz in China, it’s fair to reason that the Hyundai team would want to be a little more cautious about Michelisz going head-to-head with any of the Lynk & Co drivers, especially Priaulx given the near-miss for them in Ningbo.

In fact, that’s a general principle in motorsport when the championship is in play, and some of your players are now out of contention, to let your pawns do more of the work, and protect your “king”.

Touring cars is a well-known contact sport, and when the risk of contact is high, why jeopardise your championship contenders?

The truth is both Lynk & Co and Hyundai are very fearful of their title contenders not scoring now we’re in the final furlong of the season, and are now becoming dependent on their other drivers to push for the results to stop their rivals’ championship contenders from scoring — whether that’s Yann Ehrlacher and Andy Priaulx at Lynk & Co, or Gabriele Tarquini, Nicky Catsburg and Augusto Farfus at Hyundai.

The fact is all are accomplished, professional touring car racers, and also, by coincidence or design, among the most aggressive touring car racers on the grid.

The reality is the contact between Priaulx and Catsburg was likely just the result of two very tough racers battling very hard. Catsburg was punished, but the 30-second penalty and two-point endorsement indicates the stewards’ don’t necessarily share Priaulx’s view that it was a “professional foul” and worthy of any additional action — such as the season ban Priaulx called for.

As we head to the end of the season, with Hyundai and Lynk & Co both riding their drivers hard to deliver them the title, the pressure will lead to one of the teams being left in tears by the end; if not both teams— with perhaps Honda’s Esteban Guerrieri the one who will benefit the most from all the drama.