F1 driver banned after causing horrific crash

Roberto Merhi may not be a household name.

Indeed, of the 20-odd drivers currently driving in motorsport's premiere series, he's probably the least famous - as you'd expect of a man working for the cash-strapped Marussia team.

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But what you wouldn't expect is that while having a drive-for-fun race on a weekend off, Merhi would do something so unutterably stupid that you have to wonder how he has any sort of driving licence at all, let alone the 'super licence' which permits drivers to take part in F1.

Merhi was racing in the Formula Renault 3.5 series and inexplicably slowed down at the finish line, causing the crash with Nicholas Latifi that you can see in the video above.

It's not so much a question of "what was he thinking" as "was he thinking at all"?

The only possible explanation we can think of is that some sort of problem - or running out of fuel - caused him to slow down when the drivers behind him were still fighting for positions.

Other than the other explanation, that is: that Merhi just did a very, very dumb thing.

He has since been banned for two races by the sport's governing body.

It comes after this rally car driver narrowly avoided disaster with a tractor last week:

And in June, Thai motorbike rider Jakkrit Sawangswat was left in a coma following a horror crash after the finish line at a SuperSport 600cc race in Indonesia:

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