Martin Tomczyk slams ‘unsportsmanlike’ Roberto Merhi
Martin Tomczyk has railed against Mercedes’ Roberto Merhi for ‘unsportsmanlike’ on-track behaviour during last Sunday’s DTM race at Brands Hatch, following their collision at the bottom of Graham Hill hill.
The 2011 DTM champion is also the second BMW driver in a under a week to criticise Merhi.
In the aftermath of the race, Tomczyk’s stablemate, Timo Glock, described the young Spaniard as ‘dangerous’ to TouringCarTimes, after the pair tangled in the same place on lap six.
Having been stripped of pole position and sent to the back of the grid for having an underweight car in qualifying, by half distance on Sunday, Tomczyk was on course for a decent points haul, but a collision with Merhi shortly after put him out of contention and saw him eventually finish 13th.
Although Tomczyk was unable to comment immediately after the race due to his immediate departure back to Germany for the Nurburgring 24-Hours, he recently spoke to TouringCarTimes about the incident, and like stablemate Glock, heavily criticised the Mercedes driver.
“There can be no question that [Roberto] Merhi’s manoeuvre at Brands Hatch was very aggressive, and actually verged on being unsportsmanlike.
“In my opinion, he could see full well that I was right next to him with my car. Despite this, he still forced me off the track, and at the exact same spot he had pushed Timo [Glock] onto the grass before.
“This action obviously ruined my race, and ultimately his too. After that I had no chance of finishing in the top ten and It was just a matter of getting to the finish and making the best of the awkward situation.”
However, Merhi has responded to Tomczyk’s comments and believes the fault lies with the BMW driver, as he felt the 2011 DTM champion had been overly aggressive with him in the laps running up to the collision.
He also suggested that Tomczyk had been too forceful with him on-track at the season opener.
“Martin pushed me a few times in Hockenheim, then at Brands again,” Merhi told TouringCarTimes.
“I was just doing my own race, overtaking who I could, then two laps before the incident, Martin was pushing me from the back.
“I don’t think this is really nice when someone is pushing you in the middle of the corner to try and force you into a spin or a mistake.”
However, Tomczyk responded and told TouringCarTimes: “At first, everything was fair and in a sporting spirit as I was able to pull up next to him.
“[Then] in that moment, he released the steering and forced me off.
“The fact that he [Merhi], some time later, is referring to the manoeuvre as perfectly normal is something I cannot really understand.”
Despite the comments from both parties, Merhi insists he has never had any problems with other drivers in his racing career and feels there were no excuses for either his collisions with the BMWs.
“There was no excuse for any of it, really.
“At Brands I was catching Robert [Wickens] until I had the incident with Martin. The race was looking good…
“In single seaters, you can see I never had any big crashes with any other drivers.
“No, [I’ve never had any problems with anyone]. Not really.”
