Juncadella Handed Fine for “Rude, Disrespectful Behavior”

Corvette Racing driver Dani Juncadella has been fined for what the FIA World Endurance Championship stewards deemed to be “rude, disrespectful behavior” towards Augusto Farfus during their battle in Saturday’s Bahrain season finale.

Juncadella was given a €5,000 fine ( $5,780 USD), of which €4,000 was suspended, for showing BMW’s Farfus the middle finger in response to his robust defensive driving during a heated battle over sixth position late in the race.

The two drivers battled for position for multiple laps, even making contact at the Turn 10 hairpin at one stage, before Juncadella finally managed to find a way by to seal sixth for the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R he shared with Ben Keating and Jonny Edgar.

Farfus and his co-drivers aboard the No. 31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Yasser Shahin and Timur Boguslavskiy, went on to finish seventh.

The relevant stewards’ bulletin read: “Having reviewed the video evidence, the stewards determined that, while exiting Turn 11, the driver of Car 33 made an inappropriate hand gesture (middle finger) towards the driver of Car 31 [Farfus].

“Considering the matter extensively, the stewards concluded that such behavior is rude, disrespectful, and wholly inappropriate in motorsport. The stewards therefore decided to impose the penalty described above.”

The scenes of Juncadella showing his displeasure to Farfus mirrored those seen in this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, where the Brazilian driver earned the ire of another Corvette driver, Tommy Milner, for his defensive tactics.

Looking back on his battle with Farfus, Juncadella told Sportscar365: “At that moment of the race, I was pretty frustrated. We had much more pace in terms in degradation, and I also had a fuel advantage. I don’t think we were in the same race.

“He decided to defend like crazy for a couple of laps, but that wasn’t the worst thing. I’m happy to go gloves off and fight it out. We are not playing ping pong. But moving under braking is pretty miserable and he has a long history of doing that.

“I’ve known Augusto for many years, he is a great guy, but when he puts the helmet on I think he forgets that it’s better to have a clean fight. Moving under braking should be unacceptable and he constantly did it. At some point, I had enough.

“I knew I was going to pass, so I was ready with the finger to give him the ‘Milner salute’ — we started the year with one, and we finished the year with one!”

For his part, Farfus said he was less than impressed with Juncadella’s gesture.

“I think he should be very, very embarrassed about showing the middle finger in a world championship,” Farfus told Sportscar365.

“It’s embarrassing for a professional driver to behave this way. It’s a terrible example for the world.

“I don’t think I did anything wrong, we were just fighting for position. If he cannot pass me, he should stay behind.”