Michelisz penalised for collision
Norbert Michelisz has been handed a 30-second penalty by race stewards following the second World Touring Car Championship race at Brno
Micheliesz received the penalty for his part in the incident that eliminated Bamboo Engineering driver Darryl O'Young while the pair battled for track position. The sanction also includes a 10-place grid penalty, which will be suspended for the next three events.
Under braking for Turn 3, Michelisz's BMW 320 TC made contact with the left rear of Young's Chevrolet Cruze, causing the Chinese racer to spin into the gravel trap and out of the race. Hungarian Michelisz survived the contact and went on to take the chequered flag in 11th.
O'Young's Bamboo team boss Richard Coleman was satisfied the contact was accidental.
"It's quite clear that Norbert made a mistake," he said. "It was quite busy because [Michelisz] had [Robert] Dahlgren behind him, and I think it was just a simple mistake where he looked in the mirror, momentarily took his eye off Darryl and they made contact. Unfortunately it ended up with us in the gravel.
"It got brought before the stewards and we could show with on-board [footage] the impact and it was deemed that Norbert had caused an avoidable accident. It's unfortunate for him, but that's racing."
Michelisz's penalty now promotes Pepe Oriola to 11th, ahead of fellow SEAT runners Tiago Monteiro and Aleksei Dudukalo, and O'Young's team-mate Yukinori Taniguchi. Michelisz is now classified 15th and the last competitor on the same lap as the leaders.
This is the second penalty of the weekend for the Zengo Dension Motorsport driver, who started from the back of the grid after his car was found to be 12 kilos underweight during qualifying.
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