Andy Priaulx questioned TOCA’s decision to hand him a drive-through penalty in the third British Touring Car Championship race at Silverstone after a day of contrasting fortunes.
Having started race one from the pitlane, Priaulx scored an impressive second win of the season in the second encounter after overtaking Mat Jackson.
But the West Surrey Racing driver was handed a drive-through penalty in the final race of the weekend for exceeding track limits, having run wide on the exit of Copse.
Speaking to TouringCars.Net after the race, Priaulx was pleased to have scored another win in less than favourable circumstances, but felt that he had been singled out in race three for a crime that plenty were committing.
“[It was a] great win, tough win, I’m really happy with that,” he said. “I’m very pleased because starting from the back is never easy.
“All the problems I had yesterday in qualifying with the broken rollbar just didn’t really help me set the car up but we did a good job, we’ve got two other good benchmarks here so that was great.
“I’m disappointed, [with the] drive-through but…I think I was the only one to receive a drive-through and I definitely wasn’t the only one to run wide.
“Sometimes you run wide when you’re side by side and other times you run wide because everyone else is doing it – but obviously I was the one that was selected for the drive through.”
Priaulx insisted that he had only done what those around him had been doing, having clarified his rivals’ positioning to his team throughout the race.
“Did you see anyone else run wide?” asked Priaulx. “Did you see…[the] exit of Copse every lap? I counted the guy behind me at least five laps in succession so yeah, there you go.
“If you’re with a bunch of cars and they’re all doing it, what do you do? What would you do, fall back? And wait for them to get a drive through?
“It’s naughty. I radioed – I know I was a bit repetitive but I wanted to note every lap.”