Article: Boardman Should've Been Penalised | Motorsport

Contact is a major feature in the British Touring Car Championship. Most of it is fairly harmless bumper-banging or wing-mirror crunching action. However Tom Boardman’s contact in Race 3 caused a bit more damage than just a dent.

His taps (yes, they were just two slight bumps) on the back of Jason Plato were enough to put the race-leader into the barriers and let Boardman take the lead. Surely that is a step too far? Especially, as no blame whatsoever can be apportioned to Plato. The Safety Car that this incident caused led to another moment of controversy for Boardman. Upon the restart he backed the pack up to a virtual standstill after getting too close to the back of the pace car. This, inevitably, caused carnage that resulted in the retirement of the poor rookie Aron Smith. Yes, the leader can dictate the pace at that moment in time, but practically stopping cannot be deemed safe.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is somewhat baffling that the clerk of the course didn’t give Boardman some kind of penalty. I remember back at Brands Hatch in 2009 when Jonathan Adam was stripped of the win for a very similar incident (to the first one) on the same unlucky victim, Plato, at Paddock Hill Bend. This contact didn’t even lead to a retirement, so that must mean the collision at Knockhill should’ve resulted in a time penalty at least. There seems to be some inconsistency in the decision-making here, and no punishment suggests that driving into people and crawling at a restart are perfectly legitimate things to do. (He did after all cause two DNFs for innocent drivers.) Well, I don’t think they are and if similar incidents happen again, some kind of punishment should be given.

Other than that it was a great maiden win for Boardman who withstood intense pressure from Rob Collard excellently. If only his whole race was quite so impressive!

 

Good article Stephen!

I didn't see the race but i've just seen the incident in question and I've got mixed feeling about it. As you have already said, contact in the BTCC will happen and I don't think you could stop it. However, the incident involving Boardman raises questions to say the least. I feel that the first contact between them was intentional but the second one wasn't in my opinion. Both went into the corner and to me, it was clear that Boardman has the faster car. Could Boardman have avoided the contact? Maybe.

So i'm firmly sitting on the fence on this one and calling it as a racing incident!

 

Im mixed on Boardman, i love his car, but the way he put Plato out of the race i thought was unfair, and deserved some kind of penalty. I think Boardman would of won anyway, and Plato probably would of got a podium.

For the second incident, i think there was a bit of hesitation and some of his inexperience at the front. Even Matt Neal was caught out as shown on his onboard cam.

[video=youtube;xDkYwlK0UKI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDkYwlK0UKI[/video]

Great comment from a user on youtube

 

In the end Boardman was given a 6 place grid penalty at Rockingham. This raises two important questions. First of all, why couldn't this decision have been made at Knockhill, instead of being decided at the next track two weeks later, leaving fans and drivers alike waiting. Secondly, it seems a pretty pathetic punishment for leaving two cars out of the race (Plato and Aron Smith). Surely this deserves a harsher penalty.

Incidentally, Boardman seemed to take less risks in today's races (for my report on these see http://allsortsofmotorsports.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/btcc-rockingham-plato-powers-to-win-as-turbos-are-pegged-back/). At one point I thought he was going to make a wild lunge, but he backed out of it. Perhaps he has then learnt his lesson!