John George endured a trying weekend at Rockingham as the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship made its annual trip to the unique oval circuit for the second round of the year.
The TH Motorsport with JAG driver was hoping to open his account for the season at the Northamptonshire venue and qualified in 18th place third of the drivers using the older BTC-spec machinery despite an issue with the airjacks on his Honda Integra that made it difficult for the team to change tyres in the drying conditions.
After finishing race one in 15th place after an intriguing battle with the Team RAC
BMW of
Colin Turkington, George took 17th in race two having lost time with a steering problem.
As rain started to fall ahead of race three, George elected to go for wet tyres on the Integra although when the start was aborted, the rest of the team also had chance to change to tyres better suited to the conditions.
A 30 second penalty when the team was still working on the car beyond the allotted time put George on the back foot when the race got underway, and it ended in disappointment when the Cornish racer slid off in the tyres at Tarzan while being lapped on lap six with a faulty de-mister on the car meaning his visibility was severely compromised.
"I was bitterly disappointed," he said. "We had problems with our brakes in free practice; and problems with our jacks during qualifying, making it difficult to change tyres.
"A de-mister seems like such a minor thing; but the truth is if it goes wrong it's really serious. We got the tyre selection right and if the race began as intended, then we might well have been leading it. However, the sad truth is that the de-mister would still have been faulty and I still wouldn't have been able to see the grid."
