The Robertshaw Racing team endured a trying qualifying day at
Croft ahead of its home rounds of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship.
Again running just one Chevrolet Lacetti for the weekend, the team was left with plenty of work to do after a myriad of technical issues forced Harry Vaulkhard to miss both free practice sessions.
It meant the BTCC rookie went into qualifying having not turned a wheel in a touring car around his home track, although he was still able to secure 15th place on the grid for the opening race of the weekend.
We fired the engine up this morning and the clutch slave cylinder broke, team manager Joe Bradley explained. We replaced it but then it went again and we traced it to a clutch issue. Then we had an issue with the engine which I'd say was like looking in a bowl of spaghetti for the bit that is broken, but our guy is very methodical and found it and we were sorted with 30 minutes to go.
We had no data so guessed a set-up and we got close to it. P15 is a bit disappointing but if you've offered me 20th this morning I'd have taken it. We feel we have a top ten car with some refinements we plan to make and we want to run well in the races. It's hard to make predictions but Harry went from 16th to tenth in the final race at
Thruxton and if he can do it in race one here, then it will set us up for a good weekend.
Alan Taylor also suffered a tough start to the weekend with a driveshaft issue in his car in the opening practice session, although he was able to take to the track to turn some laps in the second session ahead of qualifying.
He ended up 20th quickest in his Honda Integra following the session and said he was hopeful that if the expected rain arrives on race day, then points could be up for grabs.
The session was alright and the car felt good, he said. The final red flag just caught me out as I was on a good lap and think there was a low 1min 28 there which would have put me with Hughes and George.
