Banned FIA Formula 2 racer Santino Ferrucci has spoken out for the first time since last weekend’s actions against him at Silverstone.
The American driver has apologised for his antics against Trident and Haas F1 teammate Arjun Maini when he bumped onto the rear of the Indian’s car on the slow down lap after two days of intense wheel-to-wheel fight.
Ferrucci claims there was no premeditated call for him to hit Maini, but it was just a ‘mental lapse’ on all the ‘provocation’ in a difficult season all-together in F2 where he sits 18th with just the seven points to his name.
Furthermore, the Haas junior has reasoned that he missed the stewards meeting for a random drug test he had to go to, meaning he arrived late to the paddock and then had to rush to the airport to attend a medical emergency in family at home in the US.
Having violated several of the FIA rules, Ferrucci was handed four-race (two rounds) ban and was fined 66,000 euros for not attending the stewards call and also was found on phone while in car when transiting from paddock to pitlane.
His statement read: “I want to send my sincerest apologies for my actions on Sunday at the FIA F2 race at Silverstone circuit. I used extremely poor judgement at the conclusion of the race getting far too close to my team mate Arjun and swerved away only to graze his tire, very fortunately causing no damage or issue to his car.
“There was no intent, premeditation or any type of retaliation by me actions, only anger and frustration as this has been a horrific year. I have no excuse other than the fact that I am a twenty year old Italian American with a deep passion for motorsport, which is a very emotional sport.
“While there has been much provocation leading to my mental lapse, it is still not an excuse and I will make that this not happen again. I realise I have embarrassed many people and I apologize to my Sponsors, Trident, my fellow drivers, Haas F1, FIA, FIA F2, my fans, friends and family.
“I also want to apologize to the FIA Stewards for not being able to attend the hearing. I was randomly selected for a drug test, as were others, and this delayed my return to the paddock by over an hour.
“At that point I very quickly packed and had to leave for the airport to catch an early afternoon flight back to the US to attend to an extremely urgent time sensitive family medical issue. I was notified of the Stewards meeting as I was leaving and did send an email to my team manager to forward to the Stewards explaining that I had no options but to leave.”
It seems like Trident has already acted upon to sack him, following the team’s tweets which were in support of Maini – although, no official confirmation has been made yet. Meanwhile, Haas states, it wants to check with every party involved before taking a decision.
On the other hand, news has also spread that Ferrucci and his family wanted to run the slogan ‘Trump – Make America Great Again’ on its car at the Silverstone weekend in support of Donald Trump. However, it was rejected by the FIA on political grounds.
Have you read this? pic.twitter.com/AHoi7iljts
— Akash (@avshah_) July 8, 2018