It was another tough weekend for Adrian Flux Subaru Racing as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship visited Donington Park last weekend (15/16 April). The Subaru Levorgs continue to suffer with the centre of gravity changes that have taken effect for the 2017 season leaving our Engineers continuing to work to ease the problem in addition to us also having to contend with a straight line speed deficit.
Despite the difficult circumstances the drivers showed determination and put up a good fight with the team leaving Donington with a pair of third place podium finishes.
It wasn’t all plain sailing though. When the drivers entered qualifying on Saturday afternoon, they were as determined as ever to get put in a quick time and last year’s pole man Ash drove the car on the edge as he hung on and put in a magnificent pole position lap a tenth of a second quicker than his rivals.
He smashed the current lap record held by our very own Jason Plato, only for it to be then whipped from his grasp when he was penalised for a technical infringement due to an overboost issue. Ash was excluded from the results and forced to start from the back of the grid. The reigning Jack Sears Trophy Champion refused to let it get the better of him and showed admirable maturity, keeping his head down and fully focused throughout the weekend. Jason qualified 17th with James 25th and Josh 30th.
For Race One Ash incredibly sprinted up the order fighting his way through the field to finish in an outstanding 13th place. James had a difficult start to the day ending up in the gravel trap on the opening lap with Jason also retiring to the pits at the end of lap 3. Josh made up several places to finish in 22nd place.
Ash went even better in Race Two and worked his magic on the Subaru Levorg once more pulling the absolute maximum from the car after a storming drive through the grid from 13th to finish in his first podium position of the year in 3rd place. Jason made up several positions to finish 20th ahead of James in 24th and Josh in 29th, who made a brief pit stop to change a punctured tyre.
The third race was won by Team Dynamics Gordon Shedden who was then excluded from the results due to a technical infringement which then boosted Ash up to third position awarding him his second piece of silverware of the day.Josh remains second in the rookie Jack Sears Trophy championship behind Senna Proctor impressively finishing all six races from the two BTCC rounds thus far.