Michael Doyle produced his most competitive performance since joining the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at
Thruxton, despite being forced to contend with the loss of a number of his mechanics in the run up to the race weekend.
With three mechanics informing Doyle on the Thursday prior to the event that they wouldn't be able to attend, the young Scot headed to the quickest circuit on the calendar with a skeleton squad but was helped out by former BTC Racing driver Nick Leason – who helped in get some mechanics in place to work on his Honda Civic during the weekend.
Despite qualifying in 22nd place following gearbox trouble on Saturday, the first race saw Doyle take home a solid 15th place finish as he lapped considerably quicker than the drivers around him and he could well have finished higher up the order had it not been for some errant blue flags as he chased down the
BMW of Rob Collard.
"I was lapping quicker than Collard ahead and I was confident I'd be able to have a go at him but then I started to be shown blue flags," he said. "I could see Gordon Shedden approaching with his lights on and it wasn't until I got back to the pits I realised we were racing for position.
"When I backed off to let him by, heeding the blue flags I'd been shown incorrectly, it meant I lost momentum behind Collard and so lost the chance of gaining more places and points. That was a real shame."
Doyle was also running strongly in the second race as he went up against the likes of Steven Kane, Tom Chilton and the Jordans in the fight for positions but then suffered a wheel bearing failure on lap ten which saw him go off onto the grass approaching Noble.
Having collected an advertising hoarding in the process, Doyle was then forced to retire when the engine overheated – with the damage then putting him out of race three before it even started. It now remains to be seen if the damage will also rule him out of the
Croft meeting next weekend.
"Unfortunately we had gearbox problems again but hopefully we'll have them sorted out before Croft in two weeks," he said. "Then the engine temperature went through the roof when the advertising board got stuck over the radiator. We need to wait and see what the engine builders tell us before we make a decision about the next event.
