FRUSTRATING DONINGTON PARK WEEKEND FOR TEAM VERTU
Team VERTU endured a weekend of frustration as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship headed for Donington Park GP, with a single podium finish being scant reward for the efforts of the EXCELR8-run squad.
The four-strong Hyundai team made the trip to the East Midlands venue in confident mood given a strong recent record at the circuit, with Tom Ingram, Tom Chilton, Ricky Collard and Nicolas Hamilton all optimistic about their chances on track.
A productive free practice session ended with Ingram topping the times by just over a tenth of a second, with Collard and Chilton also lapping inside the top ten.
Hamilton meanwhile would end the session with the 22nd quickest time, albeit having lapped half a second quicker than in the corresponding session last year.
Ingram and Chilton would both take part in the first qualifying session ahead of the qualifying race, with Chilton setting the sixth best time but Ingram back in ninth having lost his quickest time to track limits.
Running in the second session, Collard was eighth fastest having also fallen foul of track limits, with Hamilton going nearly a second quicker than in practice to finish in tenth.
Chilton therefore led the team’s challenge going into the qualifying race, rising up into ninth spot early on as Ingram and Collard both made up ground to move towards the top ten.
Hamilton however would see his challenge end before the lights went out, with a gearbox issue forcing him into the pits at the end of the green flag lap to retire.
Having moved into eighth after an early caution period, Chilton’s hope of further progress were hampered by an electrical issue that saw him briefly lose power and drop to the rear of the field, leaving Ingram to take up the challenge.
A battling drive from the champion saw him take the flag in eighth, just missing out on seventh after a race to the line with the Toyota of Aron Taylor-Smith. Collard would take the flag three spots back in eleventh having gained five places from his starting position.
All four drivers elected to run the less favoured hard tyre in the first race of the weekend on Sunday morning, which went behind the safety car after an incident on the opening lap.
Once the action was finally able to get underway, it was Ingram who headed the team’s challenge early on before Collard moved ahead at the Esses, with the pair running together to finish in eighth and ninth amongst the leading runners on the hard tyre.
Hamilton gained six places from where he started to finish on the fringes of the points in 17th, but it would be a tough race for Chilton as the gremlins he had faced in the qualifying race returned – leading to his car cutting out mid-way through the race to again drop him to the back of the field.
Switching to the medium tyre for race two, all four drivers were confident of making forward progress, with Ingram fighting his way ahead of Collard on lap one and rising to fourth by the mid-way point.
Having gone wheel-to-wheel with title rival Ash Sutton and the Mercedes of Dan Rowbottom, Ingram fought hard to take third spot and add to his podium tally, with Collard two places back in fifth after emerging on top of a late battle with Dexter Patterson that saw him overhaul the Audi on the final lap.
From the back of the field, Chilton showed the pace in his car to race his way through to 14th and finish inside the points, with Hamilton battling back from a clutch issue that saw him slow away from the line to race his way to 18th spot.
The final race of the weekend would prove to be a challenge for the team although it started well as Ingram rose into the top five in the early stages, although he dropped down the order when title rival Ash Sutton forced him wide off track at the Old Hairpin.
Having then been forced off again later in the race, Ingram ended the weekend with an unrepresentative ninth place as the only one of the four Team VERTU drivers to score.
Contact from other drivers hampered Collard’s challenge before he pitted having suffered a puncture, with further electrical gremlins hampering Chilton as he finished back in 17th.
That was one spot behind Hamilton, who missed out on a points finish by just a tenth of a second after a race long battle with Dan Cammish.
Tom Chilton, #3 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said:
“Results wise, this has been a weekend to forget with a number of electrical issues that were outside our control, and which prevented us from making the most of the pace we had in the car.
“In the qualifying race we set the third fastest lap and we were the second quickest car out there in race three, but we’ve just had an unbelievable amount of bad luck – and weren’t the only ones.
“The team continues to work hard and gave me a package that I felt was capable of winning a race, so it’s frustrating that we weren’t able to build on the victory at Knockhill. This is a weekend to put behind us, and move on.”
Ricky Collard, #11 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said:
“We had a decent start to race day with eighth place on the hard tyre, and a solid result in race two should have set us up for a decent run in race three from sixth on the grid.
“Sadly we got driven off the track and ended up with a puncture that put us into retirement, and it’s frustrating to have lost points as a result of that as it’s cost us a position in the standings.
“Hopefully we can be in contention at the front when go to Croft in a couple of weeks and bounce back.”
Nicolas Hamilton, #28 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said:
“Pace wise I’ve been a lot quicker this weekend than I have been before but it’s been a challenging weekend – and I think that’s true for the whole team.
“Having the gearbox issue in the qualifying race did have an impact as it cost us quite a bit of track time, but I pushed my hardest in the three races and we were close to getting a point in the final race after a great battle with Dan – who managed to get the final point by a tenth of a second.
“I think what we’re discovering now is that we’re getting to the limit of the modifications I run on my car as I’ve used some of them for ten years now.
“Under braking in particular is where I’m losing time and that’s important round here, so I think the goal now is on trying to end this season as strongly as possible and then we can focus on how we improve my modifications for next year.”
Tom Ingram, #80 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said:
“It’s been a really difficult weekend and I was certainly hoping to come away from Donington Park GP with a lot more than we have given our recent record. We were scratching our heads a bit after qualifying because the car felt good but just didn’t have pace, although we were able to gain ground in the qualifying race itself.
“Running the hard tyre in race one should have opened the door for strong results in races two and three but we just lacking that last little bit of pace and in race two, even though I held back some of my TTB, I couldn’t make the most of it despite the car feeling really nice and doing what I asked it to do.
“The contact with Ash in race three then left us vulnerable to people with more boost than we had, and it’s also more difficult to be in the pack and not able to benefit from clear air.
“All we can do is continue to push hard over the remaining three rounds to score as many points as possible, and look to end the season strongly – starting in a few weeks at Croft.”
Justina Williams, Team VERTU Team Owner, said:
“This has been a really difficult weekend for the team but I’m proud of the way that we have continued to battle hard throughout and haven’t let our heads drop.
“Clearly we were looking for more than a single podium finish but you don’t always get what you deserve in motorsport and we have to just keep pushing hard over the remainder of the year to challenge for more silverware.”
