Mehdi Bennani was frustrated to be taken out of the opening TCR Europe race at Monza, with the Comtoyou Racing driver urging his rivals to show less haste in their battles to get to the front.
Pole-sitter Bennani lost out to Brutal Fish Racing’s Dan Lloyd at the start, and was holding second before being hit by Jimmy Clairet’s Peugeot at the first Lesmo corner.
Bennani had himself gone wide on the corner, but Clairet lost control of his car through oversteer and then hit Bennani’s Audi hard mid-corner.
Both drivers were out of the race, with Clairet’s 308 ending up stricken in the gravel whilst Bennani limped back to the pits with broken front-right suspension.
“When it is something like this, there is nothing you can do,” said Bennani to TouringCars.Net. “I was also fighting with the car, to stay on the track, and he came directly into my car.
“Yeah [it was a racing incident] but it’s stupid to happen like this. Every time when we start the race we say ‘we want to race’ but to not finish a race is not good for me or him.
“I think people need to understand more how the race goes, and to not try to be P1 at the first corner.
“It’s bad, it’s like pole position for nothing. For sure I would prefer to not be on pole and to make my race than to be on pole and to lose everything on the first lap.
“We’ll try to have a good race tomorrow and to overtake some cars.”
Clairet explained that he had suffered from oversteer on the opening lap, directly resulting in the clash.
“At the first Lesmo I braked very early, and I saw Mehdi had a big oversteer,” explained Clairet. “I oversteered too, and when he was going back onto the track we crashed together.
“I oversteered too, so I lost a little bit of control, but he was in the wrong place [at the wrong time].
“It’s not big damage on the car, so I think it will be OK for tomorrow.”