I made a decent start in race on but after the first lap the race settled down as passing in Pau was next to impossible because the streets are so narrow, so I finished 17th and 5th in the Indys. Race two was not so good as my car started to stall on the line, I eventually shifted if off the line, the race was two laps in and there was a big crash after the high speed right hander after the main straight, D’Aste had been involved in a big one with Hernandez, by the time I had arrived to the first corner the circuit was blocked with Rangoni, Freitas and Tielemans, I had to take avoiding action and emergency stopped, my Leon stalled and would not re-fire due to a starter motor failure that was to blame for the car almost not getting off the line. It was my second retirement of the year and no fault of my own… but what a circuit!
On to Brno in the Czech Republic, first time on this circuit, it’s like a mini-Spa Francorchamps. Qualifying was very difficult for all the front wheel drive cars as the rear wheel drive BMW’s dominated the first three rows of the grid. I had my own problems, made a mistake in my first qualifying run, and in the second I was finding it hard to select gears, eventually my gear selector broke due to a broken engine mount. Another qualifying over and in a cloud of smoke.
Morning warm up was good as I was p.14 and had found a huge gain since qualifying, leading to race one where I had a good solid run to 16th and 4th in the Indys. I had a great start in race two and was in 12th overall and third in the independents with a rapid car underneath me, I felt second was on the cards in the independent as there was no beating the top Indy
BMW as they had dominated the weekend. Andy Priaulx the reigning World Champ was behind me in 13th, I made the decision to let him go as he was pushing hard. I let him through at turn 3, a very clean move until Rangoni decided he would have a bit of it too, he slammed in the side of my car and did his best to take me out, I kept going but had lost 5 places because of his over ambitions. The car was limping and I just made it home in 17th and 5th in the Indys. Taking the positives from the weekend, I climbed up to fourth place in the Championship and we made a huge step forward set up wise, I’m working really well with my engineer Russell and every race we are making big leaps forward.
![Emmet O'Brien - GR Asia SEAT Leon [Pic credit: FIA WTCC]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/330082.jpg)
