GP2: Cecotto Downplays Pile-Up Blame

[OverTake.gg]

[youtube]

Johnny Cecotto Jr has tried to water down his responsibility for the huge 14 car in Monaco's feature race.

The Venezuelan currently sits 12th in the championship standings, and was not permitted to take part in the sprint race on the streets of Monte Carlo & La Condamine as a result of his actions.

After a poor getaway from pole, dropping back to behind Racing Engineering's Julián Leal. Cecotto out-braked himself into Turn 1, losing his ability to turn, forcing him to make a split second decision: to smash into the armco at over 200kph, or to lessen the impact into the tyre wall taking Leal with him.

Cecotto chose the latter, giving Leal nowhere to go, arguably causing other drivers to swerve triggering a chain of collisions which blocked any route through Sainte Devote. In total, 14 cars ended up beached before they'd reached the second corner, and the safety car was immediately brought out.

Cecotto denies complete responsibility for the incident, saying that his car did not collide with anybody as a result of his driving.

"I made a mistake and made impact with the wall which ended my race," Cecotto said regarding the incident.

"I didn't touch any other drivers, just outbraked myself."

"There was another crash to the right of mine which caused a big pile-up. The red flag came out and my car was lifted into the truck."

"Unfortunately, the stewards deemed this my fault and I was excluded from race two."

It appears that the incident may actually have been two separate collisions, both of which resulting in pile ups.

"It was a shame: we worked very well in preparation for Monaco and after a lot work I think we had a very good set-up on the car," he said.

"We had prepared a decent plan for the laps in qualifying and we held to that perfectly without any problems of traffic, which gave us a perfect session."

"I could feel that the car was very good."

This is not the first time Cecotto has been the centre of critism. In Malaysia, he forced Sam Bird off of the track in qualifying, and was disqualified from the session; and in Spain where he cut across in front of Sergio Canamasas, which did not result in a penalty.

View the Post on the Blog

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

In all fairness I don't understand all the negative hype surrounding his person really.

Like he said he outbraked himself into T1 and that 14 others pile up is not really his fault but more the downside of a city track.

 

[Jordi Casademunt]

When I saw the replay of the start, the crashes behind him don't seem to be directly his fault (although having someone crash in front of you might make you lose focus, that's mostly your fault).

But Cecotto has done enough to earn the negative hype:

Those 2 should have been enough to get him a race ban on their own.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Those 2 should have been enough to get him a race ban on their own.

Absolutely, but those incidents are of a completely different order than the Monaco accident.

Those accidents happening before having nothing to do with racing, horrible.

 

[the_sigman]

Αs Tom Dillmann said, stewards acted on consenquences and not acts

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

While this incident shouldn't cause a race ban. He never, learns. He never feels like he's done anything wrong. And that is more dangerous than anything else.

 

[Gary Jibb]

I know nothing other than watching the video, but it's not his fault everyone else sucks at driving too. The car that ran over his car had his brakes locked before the blamed driver did, and all the other idiots crashed into the car who stopped so he wouldn't run over someone else's wing. Nothing there made any sense. Bunch of European kids watching too many football dives and trying it in their own sport. Racing's racing, crashing is crashing. Move on to the next race and let the sponsors decide when they want to stop paying everyone to waste there funds crashing cars.
My crappy opinion, it would probably differ if I didn't feel like crap today.

 

[Sk3ptik0n]

Back in the 70's in Italy Johnny Cecotto Sr. was very famous in Italy. His nickname back them was "Johnny Cerotto" where "Cerotto = "Band Aid" in Italian.
Looks like it runs in the family.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Senior was awesome on two wheels

 

[Hampus Andersson]

BMW made a M3 Edition after him as well.

 

[Bradley Vanian]

He only actually caused an incident with 1 other driver, and that was just down to making a mistake under braking.

The rest of the crash was caused by others not giving room which blocked the track overall.

 

[James Fellows]

Looking at that video he is only partly to blame. The guy in the white/blue car jamming up the inside contributes a lot to the pile up as well. Still, even though it is a street circuit, if you can't drive to the conditions, you shouldn't be driving.

 

[Ho3n3r]

The man has a point.

Even the best F1 drivers in the world have done that at some point in their careers, mostly luckily not having someone to their left.

However, the 2 other silly incidents referred to in here are a cause for concern. Does he not realise that he is in real life, and not a video game?