Bleekemolen slams Ammermuller

Michael Ammermuller

Jeroen Bleekemolen believes justice was done following A1 Team Germany’s exclusion from the Sprint race in Durban today.

Michael Ammermuller was judged to have caused an avoidable collision with Bleekemolen, and Germany lost sixth place as a result. The incident occurred at the final corner, when Ammermuller ran into the back of the Dutch car, spinning him round and stopping the race.

Bleekemolen gave a strong TV interview immediately after the race, labeling Ammermuller as ‘mad’, and that he would ‘never speak to him again in his life’.

However, Bleekemolen remained strong in his viewpoints, even when the dust had settled after today’s Feature race.

‘Germany just hit me in the rear really hard,’ Bleekemolen said. ‘And I still don’t know what he was thinking.

‘I just couldn’t believe it. He hit me a few times, not just when I went off, but beforehand too. He just called it a brake test, which is stupid, because I checked on the data and I actually braked later.

‘The exclusion was right. I still had my result, so I was happy for that and he lost his points. That’s the way it should be.’

The Netherlands’ Feature race ended in similar circumstances, with Bleekemolen being hit from behind this time from South Africa’s Adrian Zaugg. Like in the Sprint race, he initially thought he had retired, but due to a race stoppage, he was actually classified in the points. Bleekemolen was more forgiving when he talked of his incident with Zaugg however.

‘I was quite upset about the incident in the first corner, but then the marshal told me the race was over,’ he added. ‘Zaugg’s move was also stupid, but he wasn’t behind me and trying to push me nearly off the road.

‘Of course you can overshoot the corner and he was way too optimistic and it shouldn’t happen – but it can happen. With Germany, he hit more often.

‘It was a really crazy day. We got crashed out twice and twice we got points. We were lucky there.’