Villa given grid penalty

Date published : 04 Jul 2011 - 11:02:00

Javier Villa has been given a five-place grid penalty for the next round of the World Touring Car Championship at Donington Park following a controversial incident at Porto last weekend. The Proteam BMW driver attempted to pass Fredy Barth at the first chicane on the opening lap of race one, but spun the Swiss driver into his SUNRED SEAT team-mate Aleksei Dudukalo and eliminated both. The former GP2 racer was retrospectively given a drive-through penalty for causing incident, but as he did not finish the race, that has been converted into a grid penalty for the British round. Two other drivers were penalised during the Porto weekend. Mehdi Bennani had 30s added to his overall times in both races; for cutting a chicane in Race 1 and for hitting Stefano D'Aste later on, while Kristian Poulsen also cut a chicane in Race 1 and was docked 30s.