Gordon Shedden says he is confused about comments made by Tom Coronel after the Nürburgring Nordschleife FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) races, in which the Dutchman singled out Shedden when talking about contact.
After the dust had settled from three eventful races on the Nordschleife, Coronel made reference to Shedden, accusing him of making contact in the races.
“Some of the driving out there was pretty tough,” said Coronel, “and there was a lot of contact, especially from Gordon Shedden.”
But the Scot, who was hit with a penalty for contact with Gabriele Tarquini in the second race, says he was confused by Coronel’s comments.
“I didn’t touch Tom all weekend, so I’m not sure what he’s on about,” said Shedden to TouringCars.Net. “The only contact I had with Tom was when he drove into my side so hard that the passenger side window fell in!
“If he’s talking about any other incidents over the weekend, I didn’t know that he had the availability to look at everything that the FIA look at and to see all my onboards, so I’m quite surprised by that!
“I know he had some contact with JK [Vernay] in race three – they were side-by-side – maybe there was a bit of contact there.
“Maybe he’s thinking of the wrong Audi, but I didn’t touch him all weekend.”
Away from the accusations of contact, Shedden said he was pleased with his performance on Thursday, when he finished seventh after a recovery drive from 17th on the grid, having been hit with a ten-place grid penalty after initially qualifying inside the top ten.
“Thursday was really good because we qualified eighth on the road, but then René Rast and myself got a ten-place penalty for not slowing enough under yellows. Even though we did slow they said it wasn’t enough, but couldn’t quantify how much we needed to slow, so it was a bit of a strange one.
“The car felt really good on the Thursday and I think we were within half a second of the fastest lap of the whole race.
“We made progress and the car felt fantastic. Thursday was one of the better days that we’ve had so far this year.”
After the Nordschleife event Shedden lies 14th in the drivers’ standings with 20 points.