IFMAR 1:8 GTe World Cup Podium revised

IFMAR has issued a statement regarding the revision of the podium result of the A-Main of the 1:8 GTe World Cup which ran alongside the alongside last week’s 1:8 GT World Championship in Sydney, Australia.  With Joern Neumann taking the overall victory with wins in all three finals, there was a penalty issued for A3 by the Race Director following the race which saw Peter Jovanovic docked a lap for ‘Un-sportmanship’ for failing to re-address early race contact.  This promoted Top Qualifier Natanaele Senesi to the final step of the podium as at least he thought.  On Saturday morning unknown to any of the drivers, the penalty was removed by IFMAR as the Race Director had incorrectly applied his discretion to penalise the offender by removing a lap for the alleged offence.  Upon further discussion with IFMAR, clarification of the rules showed that there was no provision or does it permit the use of video’s as a retrospective evidence to apportion wrong doing and hence apply penalties.  Disappointingly, Senesi only found out some 28-hours later when he was called out to collect the trophy for fourth place.  Herfried Pucher was just as surprised when he got called to collect the third place trophy with the crowd even calling that there was an mistake in the results.  While the presentation of the 1:8 GT World Championship continued, there was ongoing discussion between an understandably frustrated Senesi, the Race Director, IFMAR officials and club representatives that when on until close to midnight.   IFMAR have now issued a statement on the incident which they agreed ‘resulted in disappointment and dissatisfaction for both drivers’ leading the governing body to make the decision ‘to award the 3rd place to both participants as a tie in the race.’  The matter highlights the need for IFMAR to establish a formal method of communication with competitors such as the use WhatsApp Channels.

At the 2023 1/8 GTE World Cup held in Sydney’s John Grant International Raceway, an incident occurred during the 3rd A-Main finals.  This incident which had occurred during the early parts of the race was not observed or detected by 3 race officials/referees at the point of occurrence.  This was brought to the attention of the race officials after the race by the driver bearing video evidence.  The race director had then incorrectly applied his discretion to penalise the offender by removing a lap for the alleged offence.  However upon further discussion with IFMAR and clarification of the rules shows that there is no provision or does it permit the use of video’s as a retrospective evidence to apportion wrong doing and hence apply penalties.  This regulation is in place to prevent officials from being overwhelmed with protests from every single incident in a race taking up valuable time for the smooth running of the event.  The penalty from the incident was then removed and the results corrected.  However there was a failure to furnish the information to three separate parties impacted in a timely manner.  This led to the drivers in 3rd and 4th to discover the change only during the trophy presentation which resulted in disappointment and dissatisfaction for both drivers.  To be impartial to the participants affected by this incident, IFMAR has decided to award the 3rd place to both participants as a tie in the race.

Official result;
1) Jorn Neuman
2) Peter Jovanovic
3) Herfried Pucher / Natanaele Senesi ex equo
5) Chris Charalambous
6) Ross Lalic
7) Cameron Kendall
8) Tim Moylan
9) Michael Stone
10) Jason Vallely