Wrotham based Airwaves Racing endured another challenging weekend in the latest round of the British Touring Car Championships at Oulton Park.
The team had another race weekend where it seemed they suffered from more bad luck than they did good luck, securing just two top ten finishes, despite the fact that they had so much pace showing in the car when it was on the rack.
Qualifying wasn’t the best for the team as Mat Jackson finished down in 11th place and Aron Smith in 17th after he struggled with an intermittent engine fault that would come back to haunt him on race day.
Reflecting on the race weekend Team manager Oly Collins, said: “As bad weekends go, that has got to be right up there. We just haven’t had a break – despite being confident we had made good progress leading up to and during this weekend. Fundamentally a poor qualifying result hurt us amongst a very competitive top twelve.
“Both drivers were dealt some really bad luck today but we have to pick ourselves up and work hard to make Croft our turning point.”
In race one the duo got off to a good start and were making progress through the field during the opening laps. However, on lap four the engine fault returned to hinder the young Irishman’s progress, forcing him into the pits and a retirement.
Mat Jackson however showed that he had pace in his NGTC and came through to finish in seventh place, for what would turn out to be his best result of the weekend.
Giving his reaction to the weekend’s racing Smith said: “It’s been a little bit of a troubling weekend; and it’s unfortunate because we’ve done so much testing and developed the car so much from where we were – but we just never got to show our hand to be fair.
“We had engine issues in qualifying on Saturday which affected us in race 1 and forced the retirement. I’ve never seen a team work so hard to change an engine between races; because it’s one of those things that you don’t even make it out at all and even though we had to start at the back, we still made it to the grid, which was impressive.”
“Now we have a much clearer direction going into the next round which is really positive. Hopefully Croft will be a turning point for us.”
Unbelievably and full credit to the team they managed to pull off a miracle and replace Smith’s engine in the break between race one and two to ensure he could start the next race from the back of the grid.
It took just one hour and fifteen minutes to replace the engine and he rewarded his mechanics by making up eleven places and came home in fourteenth place.
Jackson by contrast looked like he was going to be finishing in the top five and underlining that the pace was there when he had a coming together Sam Todoroff in the MG, which sent him down the back the field and he limped home in twentieth place.
Talking about his contrasting race weekend, Jackson said: “We’ve really made progress with the car this weekend. I think we would have had three top five finishes this weekend, but performance wise we had a few issues that cost us that, which is a real shame but we’re still learning.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel now and we’re moving in the right direction – we’re challenging the Honda’s and faster than the Toyota’s and I feel comfortable with the direction that we’re heading in.”
In the final race, both of the Airwaves cars started from the back of the grid after some last minute repairs and set-up changes. Smith once again showed that but for his mechanical issues he would have been right up there during the weekend finishing in the top ten.
Jackson unfortunately had his charge through the field halted by an unscheduled visit to the pits after sustaining damage, finishing in 19th place.
In the Jack Sears Trophy Liam Griffin returned to form winning two of the three races of the weekend, leaving him just one place off the top of the standings in the S2000 class after a judicial reversal.
Giving his opinion on the weekend at Oulton Park, Liam said: “All in all I’m pretty happy with the weekend. Race 1 was a bit disappointing with the result being reversed, but the ying and yang came through with us getting another win in race 3.
“Overall the weekend was a fair result; Lea Wood had the pace- but to come away with one of the trophies from the weekend is a good result for us and a good sign for the championship.”
The team will be back on track in North Yorkshire in two weeks’ time as the season moves onto Croft where the team will be looking to put this race weekend behind them and move forward.