What the #*$!: "Attempted Manslaughter in Megane Trophy"

[Bram Hengeveld]

Dutch racing driver Bas Schothorst is considering to sue a fellow driver for an attempted manslaughter. Schothorst was racing this Saturday in the Eurocup Megane Trophy at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona and was chased and finally t-boned by a teammate of his main rival for the championship he told to newspaper De Telegraaf.

The driver in question, Navajo from Oregon Team 3, was immediately suspended for life after the race by Renault Motorsport for all their brand related classes. The organizers are pushing to get this ban adopted by the FIA.

This is already the second hideous incident committed by a racing driver as we reported about this motorbiking nutcase a month ago.

[youtube]

View the Post on the Blog

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

That's a dumb thing to do in sim racing, but I never thought anyone would be boneheaded enough to try it in real life racing... let alone an official Renault championship!

 

[Scott Webber]

lol, jeez what a idiot, some1 like that should not be allowed to race again, playing with some1's life, i'd hate to see him in open wheelers.

 

[Jonathan Holmes]

wtf is going on in this world!

 

[Von Butters]

Absolute insanity. I couldnt belive what i was reading, and seeing the vid, it churned my stomache!

 

[Pascal Herbig]

Looks just like a public Megane Trophy race on rFactor, except that here, real life health was on the line. I hope the FIA bans that idiot for life.

 

[David Dominguez]

I agree, he should get a lifetime ban.

 

[April Dillon]

I think there is justice in this, in as much as it's a swift end to the guy's career. He's in a position millions of people would love to be in. You'd think being one of the fortunate few, he'd value it enough not to **** about.

Is there really any such thing as attempted manslaughter though? I know I'm being pedantic, but if I recall correctly, manslaughter is accidental killing. But we all seem to agree that's not an accident.

 

[Xosé Estrada]

The crowd completely see it coming:

- Go straight to him, come on!
- Yessss!
- Come on!
- Yes he took revenge! Revenge! Revenge!

I guess the other car took him out before or something like that.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

Doesn't make it right though.

FIA should uphold the ban for sure imo.

 

[Dinca Andrei]

Either way thats a momment of frustration i belive and again same on the track like in motorbiking epilespy atetmpt momment few weeks back.Doesnt matter what happend before this,thats not the way to respound.

 

[Markus Neumann]

"Attempted manslaughter" is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. The cars aren't that fast at that part of the track and what he did really wasn't that dangerous. Sure, if someone did that to me in a simracing game I'd be mad too, and obviously more so in real life, but come on. Sure, it's stupid, but in a pretty hilarious way. The crowd seems to agree

If the FIA ban him, I'm sure they'll have a place for the guy in NASCAR

 

[Jordi Casademunt]

Intentionally ramming someone out of track should get you a ban. As easy as that, it doesn't matter they don't go that fast.

Because if you allow it at a certain speed, what about 1kph faster? Or 2? And suddenly someone is on his way to the walls, just fast enough to get injured.

Also, the crowd is definitely saying he got revenge. They were also encouraging him to skip the chicane to catch the other driver (not sure, the audio isn't that good). I wonder what happened earlier, but it's no excuse for this kind of behaviour.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

That was funny!

 

[Craig Stevenson]

Schumaker and Monaco or Schumaker and Melbourne spring to mind

 

[Matthew327]

That was funny!

With all respect, but no - this isn't funny at all.

He is risking another driver's health on purpose, and that is a kind of behavior which should immediately end your career as a race driver.

 

[Alejandro Riveiro]

I hope this nutcase never gets to drive a racing car, ever again. Even if he was accidentally spun from 1st to last. That's just unacceptable.

 

[Bozhidar Velinov]

Who gave that guy a drivers license ? (I know we are supossed to talk about racing license but you know what I mean.)

 

[Markus Neumann]

Intentionally ramming someone out of track should get you a ban. As easy as that, it doesn't matter they don't go that fast.

Because if you allow it at a certain speed, what about 1kph faster? Or 2? And suddenly someone is on his way to the walls, just fast enough to get injured.

Also, the crowd is definitely saying he got revenge. They were also encouraging him to skip the chicane to catch the other driver (not sure, the audio isn't that good). I wonder what happened earlier, but it's no excuse for this kind of behaviour.

Just to make this clear, I didn't say it should be allowed just because it's at low speed. But there's a difference between bumping someone in the rear at 80km/h and ramming them with 250km/h in a braking zone.
Sure, what this guy did was dumb and illegal and he deserved to be banned for it, but I don't think he endangered anyone's life.
And for that reason, in my opinion it's okay to think this is funny

 

[Trebor901]

The other driver deserved it he'd already taken out two of the other guys team mates in one foul swoop into turn 1