Andy Wilmot was looking forward to making his much anticipated debut season in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship over the Easter bank holiday weekend.

Unfortunately for Andy that didn’t happen after a series of issues beset the car which meant that he was hampered all weekend and couldn’t go racing in front of his friends and family at Brands Hatch.

Speaking to Kent Sports News after a devastating weekend, Andy said: “It all started with issues in free practice. In free practice one, the car was plugged in and it was given an update by Cosworth, and their update wasn’t compatible with the sensors that we have on our car. Some of them are a year or two years old, the car would run, but we had no throttle.

“That saw us pretty much in the garage, in free practice two we managed to get the car talking to the throttle, so we did have throttle. We had a boost issue, so the car was essentially over boosting, we put a new boost sensor on it, I then managed to do one lap and that was the session over.

“The car was running on the last lap of free practice two, we went out in qualifying with minimum boost to try and get the engine some kilometres as it was a brand new engine. We did about eight to ten laps, and then I came in changed tyres and went back out again.

“I then came back in with another issue, basically the dashboard came up flashing red, and I came in. They were going to turn the boost up so I could have some flying laps to get a good qualifying time.”

“That didn’t work, so I came in and they put some oil in the car and dropped it back down and it didn’t want to pull away after that, it had no power or torque. I was revving it up to 6,000 rpm and every time I let my foot off the clutch it just died.”

“It is pretty much an unknown gremlin and I don’t know if it is engine or electric and the guys are as baffled as I am. That saw us on race day stuck in the garage all day, they have removed the engine because we were going to replace that anyway, but they are going to get that checked over.”

“Whatever the problem is, it needs to be sorted because this weekend was a complete waste of time, and it is obviously upsetting and we aren’t in the championship to sit in the garage.”

The weekend couldn’t really have been much worse for Andy or his Welch Motorsport team with Dan Welch also out with a broken foot, it could be said it was doomed from the outset.

Andy added: “That’s certainly how it seems. I personally thought we had ironed out all the issues that we had and that we could have. We were only saying the other day we have sacrificed our testing time to iron out the reliability issues, so when it came to racing it wasn’t going to have any issues and it would be a reliable car.”

“Unfortunately that is not the case and we have stumbled across another few little problems which has pretty much taken us off the grid for the whole weekend.”

“With Dan and his broken foot and his problems it has definitely been a bad weekend. I know the team are very focussed now and they have really worked really hard the whole weekend trying to eliminate the problems that we have had.”

“At the end of the day there is nothing that they can do and we have only got limited facilities and time while we are at the circuit. It was unfortunate but I know that myself and the team are more determined than ever to get it right because we have a point to prove now, and going into the next round although there were many new drivers or rookies to the championship, I am now the rookie to the championship as the guys have pretty much had one hundred and fifty more laps than me this weekend.”

It was incredibly frustrating for Andy to have to watch everyone else go racing and not be able to go out there and go wheel to wheel with them on Sunday.

He said: “It was without a shadow of a doubt the most frustrating day of my life, knowing that my dream has always been to drive in the British Touring Car Championship. I finally get into a position where I can compete in it for a whole season and at round one, my home circuit and one of my favourite circuits I can’t race at because of technical issues.”

“I am absolutely devastated the team are really upset and everyone who support Welch Motorsport and myself are all really gutted for us. That is the word that everyone has used on social media or said to my face that they are gutted for me.”

Andy now turns his focus to the second round of the season at Donington Park and being able to get out there and show what he can do.

“I feel like I am the new rookie in the championship now with a lot less mileage under my belt, we haven’t had a great deal of testing anyway. What testing we did have only one of the days counted as a really good test day. Mileage with me in the car there hasn’t been a great deal, I was very keen to get out there to put some mileage on the car, so we can move forwards and show our full potential.

“Somebody posted on social media saying quote of the day by Andy Wilmot ‘at least we didn’t get any damage’ that is one of the few things that put a smile on my face today as it was really funny. Watching it on the tele doesn’t justify the whole point of being there for me today.”

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