Esteban Guerrieri and Néstor Girolami crossed the line in fourth and fifth position respectively at the end of the first World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) race this weekend. However, with Girolami better placed in the championship, eyebrows were raised at Guerrieri’s last lap overtake.
With Cyan Racing struggling for pace, the Slovakian round was shaping up to be a prime opportunity for Girolami to make a dent into his 31-point deficit to championship leader Yann Ehrlacher.
In the latter stages of the race, Girolami was running in fourth position while his main rival circulated at the lower end of the top ten. Things therefore appeared to be going the Argentine’s way until his own Münnich Motorsport team-mate suddenly began to pose a threat.
Amidst confusion on the team radio, Guerrieri continued to attack and eventually pulled off a forceful but fair overtake on his team leader at turn three on the final lap.
From the outside, it looked like a clear disregard for team orders, however the incident is being explained by the team as a consequence of confusion rather than single-mindedness.
Despite the loss of vital points, Girolami appeared reasonably upbeat when asked to reflect on how the race panned out.
“The race was really good, car balance was ok and I felt very confident with the car,” said the Argentine. “We could attack and gain position at the start, I would say this was the key to the race.
“We got two positions at the start, I overtook Nicky [Catsburg] on the outside, he respected me really well so thanks to him as well. With this type of manoeuvre you need respect because otherwise you cannot do it.
“Then when I saw Esteban coming in P5, it was clear for me just beforehand that championship order would stay the same on track, so I knew that he wouldn’t attack.
“But anyway I asked my engineer for a clear message and my engineer replied to me that he [Guerrieri] would not attack.
“Beforehand he asked his engineer [too] so that everything would be clear, but apparently Esteban didn’t have the radio and the message from yesterday he didn’t understand well.
“So yeah, it was a misunderstanding from him, I accept his apologies and we have to look forward.”
That positive sentiment was shared by Guerrieri, who is happy with the points haul from the race, even if the distribution of those points wasn’t quite how the team had planned.
“It was a challenging, very challenging race with mixed conditions,” Guerrieri explained. “We decided to start with wets on the rear like basically everybody did, so we knew it was going to be very difficult to drive the car because obviously the track was drying up, but still it was very cold so we needed this tyre configuration on the car.
“Then I did a very poor start, I went backwards I think, out of the top ten. So from there I needed to work my way back, and yeah I fought my way up to P4.
“With Néstor on the last lap it was a bit of a miscommunication, we were not very clear on that. We got some good points and I think it was a positive race I would say.”
Race two gets underway at 11:45 BST (12:45 CEST), with Girolami started the race from pole position.