Dusan Borkovic could leave Proteam Racing over parts dispute

Serbian driver Dusan Borkovic could be set to leave his seat at Proteam Racing, following his shock withdrawal at the Marrakech race weekend just four hours before the race was due to start, following a dispute over the specification of the team’s Honda Civic WTCC and support for him in the car.

Borkovic announced his intention not to race soon after 13:00 local time yesterday, with the race due to start at 16:15. The driver’s management team have released a statement citing ongoing problems with the 6ft9 driver’s seating position which was still causing numbness in his legs, but primarily there was a concern over the brakes and dampers on the car, which were “not race ready”, and that the #98 Honda Civic was “not up to speed with other TC1 cars and other Hondas.”

“You could see that I was fighting hard and that I drove on the very limit in free practice and qualifying,” said Borkovic. “Brakes and dampers especially didn’t seem ready for this race. And when you add my sitting position to this it is not a good combination especially for this track.”

“Also, it may have been a wrong decision to compete in Morocco so soon after my father’s death. I wanted to continue for him but I am not 100% focused and it is really hard for me to deal with these ridiculous issues at this moment. The non-functional car in this state was not safe for me to drive, I didn’t want to cause problems for myself or other drivers,” he added.

Long-standing independent squad Proteam Racing however has disputed their driver’s accusations that the car is not of the same specification as the other Hondas of Tiago Montiero, Gabriele Tarquini and Norbert Michelisz that were taking part that weekend.

“The car is in the 2015 configuration just like the other Civics”, said team principal Valmiro Presenzini to TouringCarTimes. “Parts such as the brakes require homologation from the FIA, and the 2014 spec brakes are not allowed anymore. The car passed the FIA technical scrutineering checks, confirming that the parts were up to date.”

Dampers were also brought up in the dispute, to which Presenzini responded:
“It is up to the team to decide which type of damper to use and from which manufacturer…these are the same kind of dampers Mehdi Bennani won with last year, giving the Civic TC1 its maiden win in the series.”

Presenzini says he’s not happy with how things played out at the weekend, saying his tried it utmost to convince Borkovic to race. “We tried to do as much as we could to get him in the car for the races, but Dusan eventually refused to do so. It was a shock to us, as we were convinced we would have been competitive enough to score points and generally battle it out on track, but that didn’t happen unfortunately. I am convinced that there are different issues, but I will not discuss in public about these things.”

Borkovic’s management has stated that a decision on the rest of the season is yet to be made.