Sam Tordoff remains unconcerned about the performance of the BMW 125i M-Sport heading into this afternoons British Touring Car Championship qualifying session at Rockingham after the standings leader endured a difficult brace of practice sessions.
An error on setup in the morning session saw Tordoff spin out at Tarzan hairpin in practice one, bringing out the red flags. Though he managed to eventually make it back to the pit lane under his own power, the volume of gravel caught in his BMW made it impossible for him to rejoin the fray for the remainder of the session.
Consequently, Tordoff spent the entirety of practice two chasing setup gains that usually requires the focus of two sessions, rather than chasing an outright lap time. He confirmed shortly after the session that the car was undamaged as a result of it’s tribulations.
“It was just full of gravel. We set the brake bias up slightly wrong and the first time I hit the anchors, round she went. That was the end before we had started, so we had a lot to get through there [in practice two].” he explained.
“We had lots to try and normally we have two sessions to try all those things, so it was a case of ‘right, you’ve got two laps to try that and then we’re moving onto the next thing’, so we got through a hell of a lot there and we’ll have to have a look at what’s good and what’s bad.”
He also confirmed the team elected to run scrubbed tyres as a result of the problems, saving their fresh rubber to use later on today in qualifying and during the triple header of races tomorrow. Crucially, teams no longer run the softer compound at Rockingham, but instead use the special ‘harder’ compound reserved for Thruxton.
“We didn’t put new tyres on so that’s why we were a bit further down than perhaps we should be, but we’re in for a tough weekend I think.”
With some suggestion rain could fall before 15:30 this afternoon, Tordoff admitted he would be quite pleased to see the rain clouds form in Northamptonshire to close the performance of the field.
“I think from what experience I’ve had this morning, we probably need that [rain]”.