Morgan 'gutted' after race three jump start
WIX Racing's Adam Morgan missed another golden opportunity in doubling his 2015 British Touring Car Championship victory tally after a costly race three jump start put him out of the running at Oulton Park.
The Mercedes A Class driver started the reverse race three grid on pole position and crucially held the lead ahead of the RWD BMW 1 Series of Sam Tordoff. But it soon transpired that Morgan had, in fact, jumped the gun and was promptly given a drive-through penalty for his error.
"Gutted. Rules are rules and if you're forward out of your box, then you've jumped the start. I knew I crept forward so I stopped the car and I thought I done enough to prevent the penalty but my engineer informed me of otherwise," Morgan told crash.net.
"It wasn't meant to be this weekend but we've done OK. We've just got to move forward to Croft and back up the championship hopefully."
The news of the WIX Racing driver's penalty came particularly as a bitter blow for the Mercedes squad as the early stages of the final race indicated a potential carbon copy of Morgan's rampant Thruxton success.
"The WIX Mercedes was completely flying. It felt really good to drive. Once I got round turn one, I just got my head down and the car was on rails," Morgan continued.
"I could see the gap was growing ahead of Matt [Neal] and thought 'this is it' no mistakes, head down and hopefully - fingers crossed- a win or a podium. Like you said, you have weekend's where it's not meant to be and this is one of them."
Eleventh and sixth during the first two races still leaves Morgan in the top-six of the championship standings as the series heads to Croft in just over two-weekend's time.
Morgan says the tight and twisty layout of the Croft circuit should suit the Mercedes, which tends to thrive around the narrow configurations thanks to the A Class' handling characteristics.
"I think the car suits those sorts of tracks which are narrow and windy. To be honest, you can put the car on any track and it suits it. I love Croft and its great track to drive, so hopefully three strong points scoring finishes," he concluded.
