Supercar provisional until November
by Tim Whittington |
The final positions in the Supercar category of the European Rallycross Championship will remain provisional until the FIA Court of Appeal makes its decision on the appeal lodged by American ASN, ACCUS, against the decision of the Dutch ASN, KNAF, to reject Tanner Foust’s appeal against his exclusion from the Dutch round of the championship at Valkenswaard. The hearing is now due to take place on November 4, having been moved from its original date of October 27.
Foust was excluded from the event after an incident in the third heat in which the stewards found him guilty of ignoring the black flag. The American’s appeal against the exclusion was ruled inadmissible by the KNAF which said that the required fee had not been received within the time limits.
Appeals to the FIA Court are quite rare in any discipline, and this is believed to be the first to be lodged concerning Rallycross. The FIA describes the International Court of Appeal as: “The International Court of Appeal is the final appeal tribunal for international motor sport. Established under the FIA Statutes and the FIA’s International Sporting Code it resolves disputes brought before it by any of motor sport’s National Sporting Authorities world-wide, or by the President of the FIA. It can also settle non-sporting disputes brought by national motoring organizations affiliated to the FIA.”
The outcome, of course, is unknown, and so too are what kind of penalties may be applied or changes to results ordered. Should ACCUS and Foust be successful, however, it seems that the least he can expect is to be reinstated in the results of the Dutch event: currently excluded from those results he is forced to include the zero score from that event in his end of year total but being reinstated would allow him to use Holland as the dropped score.
Foust did complete four laps in the third heat in Holland and the official results detail the time for each of those laps. Combining the lap times gives a race time, in this case 3m04.583s. This would have placed Foust 13th in heat three, behind 12th placed Toomas Heikkinen (3m04.278s) but ahead of Kevin Procter (3m07.043s).
Returning again to the official results, Foust placed 16th in the first heat, but did not finish the second. This would have left him with 16 from heat one and 13 from heat three, a qualifying total of 29. Assuming we reinstate Foust in heat three, those with a slower time all move down one place to make way for him; Procter becoming 14th instead of 13th, etc.
Taking this into account, Wil Teurlings (90, 12, 17) also ends the heats with 29 but would lose the tie break with Foust as his 90 (DNS, caused by engine problems) in heat one is worse than Foust’s 80 (DNF) in heat two.
Had Foust received a third heat time those affected would have been Liam Doran, 15th instead of 14th and ending the heats with 19 instead of 18 which would have left him 13th and Toomas Heikkinen 12th whereas in the event they were the other way around.
Davy Jeanney, Procter, Teurlings and Jos Jansen also end up with a different qualifying total. Jeanney and Procter remain 16th and 17th, Foust slotting into the order in 18th and pushing Teurlings, Jansen and Ron Snoeck (who did not finish in heat three) down the final classification one place each.
The point of this rather long winded explanation is that, even if Foust had kept his third heat time, or if he is subsequently reinstated, he would have ended the event in 18th place and would not have qualified for the finals. His result for the event will thus be a zero, but a zero he can discard as his dropped score instead of one that he must count in his end of season total as he is forced to do with an exclusion. With this year’s racing completed, Foust is currently classified third in the championship with 107 points, seven behind Timur Timerzyanov (114). If the outcome of the appeal is as above, and Foust is able to drop the non-score in Holland, he would be able to regain the nine points scored in Belgium (currently identified as his dropped score) and would take second place in the championship.
The previous stories relating to this are linked below:
http://rallyxworld.wpengine.com/2011/08/14/foust-excluded/
http://rallyxworld.wpengine.com/2011/08/17/foust-to-appeal-exclusion/
http://rallyxworld.wpengine.com/2011/08/31/court-of-appeal-decides-against-foust/
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