Photo: ETCC Media

Dusan Borkovic and Mat’o Homola dispute race one accident in Hungary

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NIS Petrol Racing Team’s Dusan Borkovic and Homola Motorsport Mat’o Homola don’t agree about the incident which took place at the start of lap three in the first ETCC race of the season at the Hungaroring, which left Homola buried in the tyre barriers and saw Borkovic served with a drive-through penalty.

Borkovic had started from pole position, but after contact with Petr Fulín’s Krenek Motorsport SEAT at the start of lap two, had dropped behind Homola’s SEAT León Cup Racer on lap two. The two fought side-by-side during the next lap, but at Turn 2 of lap three, Borkovic appeared to make contact with Homola’s SEAT on the inside, damaging his suspension and sending him into the wall.

The stewards reviewed the incident and handed Borkovic a drive-through penalty, from which he recovered to finish fifth overall and fourth in class, while Homola was unable to finish the race and was forced to start from 20th on the grid for race two.

“I was completely inside,” said Borkovic to TouringCarTimes. “I was on the braking inside and I didn’t touch him, so I don’t know why they gave me a penalty, but that’s racing.”

Homola however says it was clear there was contact between them.

“Of course he hit me,” said the Slovakian to TouringCarTimes. “He just went into the left side of me. I know I left him some space, but on the exit of the corner he just pushed me away and I didn’t have enough space. After that we then had some problems with the geometry, it wasn’t such a big hit into the wall, but it was enough.”

In race two, with the grid defined by the result of race one, Homola started last but was able to work his way up to fifth position and score five points in the Single-Make Trophy.

“I was quite surprised with my start, I overtook the Fiestas and some BMWs, but I then came up to Aytac Biter in the BMW who was fast on the straights and I couldn’t overtake him. He surprised me at Turn 4 as he was really slow there and I hit him just a bit and there was now rub on the front tyre. So I decided to go slowly to the finish and get some points. It’s not great, but it’s better than my start last year at Paul Ricard.”