USA’s Summerton hits out at Duval

Jonathan Summerton

For the second A1GP meeting running, A1 Team USA’s Jonathan Summerton was left unhappy following a mid-race collision.

In Taupo, Summerton blamed Great Britain’s Robbie Kerr for a Sprint race coming-together.

In Eastern Creek today, it was France’s Loic Duval who was on the end of a Summerton ear-bashing.

The incident occurred on the 22nd lap, after the pair had been involved in several laps of close, wheel-to-wheel racing. Duval attempted to dive down the inside of Summerton at Turn 6, however, he collided with the ‘We the People’ car, causing enough damage to force its retirement.

Duval kept going, but race stewards gave him a drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable incident.

‘I don’t think he did it on purpose, but it was a stupid mistake for how hard he hit,’ Summerton said. ‘It wasn’t like a little tap, it was a smack. I wasn’t trying to block him because I didn’t know he was trying to pass me there.

‘We were holding them off quite well, and we could have held them off until the next pit stop at least.

‘But I went into the braking zone and I got smacked. I guess we have another battle on our hands – it was Great Britain last time and now it’s France.

‘I was expecting him to come over and apologies. I’d feel better if he had, but he didn’t. Nothing was said.'

Duval said he had been caught out by Summerton taking a slightly different line on that corner than the previous lap.

‘I was much faster than him,’ Duval said. ‘The two laps before I was going outside on that corner and he was staying inside. So I just tried to keep the same break points.

‘He came back across the track more compared with before,’ Duval said. ‘I didn’t have the space to do anything. He was in front, so it is up to me to take care of that and I’m sorry for him, but for me it was a racing incident.’