Sam Tordoff lamented another frustrating weekend as the Motorbase Performance came away with just five points from the second British Touring Car Championship meeting at Donington Park.
A suspected electrical problem hampered the gearbox in Tordoff’s Ford Focus RS, though the 2016 championship runner-up was able to drive around the problem in a commendable third until the problem became terminal in the closing laps.
A surging drive with no weight and the prime tyre in race two followed, with the GardX-backed racer coming through from the 16th row of the grid to finish 11th.
Frustratingly, he missed out on benefiting from the reverse grid draw and started the final race from the same spot.
Contact with Motorbase team-mate James Cole coming down the Craner Curves, however, cut short Tordoff’s initial charge on the harder tyre.
“We got off to a good start in race 1, but then developed a problem on lap 2 which affected the gear change,” explained Tordoff.
“I managed to figure it out, we were just as quick as everyone else despite losing time and I thought I could rescue a result and drag it out for the podium. Unfortunately the car just stopped on the exit to the old hairpin and that just about wrote the weekend off.
“Race two was an exciting race and we were quick. It was a bit of a bittersweet result really as we shouldn’t have been starting from the back but we were happy with the performance of the car and we managed to work our way into the reversed grid draw.
“Typically, lady luck wasn’t on our side again, and we missed the rub of the draw. We always knew that race 3 was going to be a tough call on the hard tyre which has struggled all weekend. We got off to a great start and I was sure that we could have at least held onto a top ten finish but we got taken out on the first lap and it was game over – again.
“I’m starting to feel like the unluckiest man on the grid at the moment. Yet again we’re super-fast and have nothing to show for it. We’re doing everything right, but it’s just not going our way at all. But we’ll dust ourselves off in time for Thruxton and hopefully that’ll be a turning point and the podiums will start to flow!”