Mike Bushell endured a weekend of mixed fortunes in the latest round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Rockingham.

Bushell suffered a challenging time on track at the wheel of his Ford Focus, with handling issues limiting him to a single points finished.

Having shown strong pace in the damp opening practice session, where his Focus was consistently towards the top of the times, qualifying would prove to be a challenging affair for reigning Clio Cup champion Mike, who was left on the back foot when his car failed the ride height test mid-way through the session.

Stripped of all his times to that point as a result, Mike was then left with just five minutes in which to post a time after a late session stoppage; eventually putting his car 23^rd on the grid.

Despite struggling to get the best from the Ford during the opening race, Mike raced hard to fight his way forwards towards the points and he was rewarded with 15^th spot – ensuring a points finish for the third meeting in succession.

Unfortunately Mike’s fastest lap was only good enough for 21^st on the grid for race two and he was left with work to do on the softer compound Dunlop tyre having slipped back to 25^th in the early stages.

Maintaining his pace throughout the race, Mike climbed back up to his starting position by the time the chequered flag dropped.

A strong start when the lights went out in race three saw Mike quickly move up to 16^th spot and he looked well placed to challenge for a second points finish of the weekend until an incident on lap seven forced him to retire; contact from the Audi of Hunter Abbott seeing him go off into the gravel exiting Deene.

Speaking after the weekends racing, Mike said: “The positive thing to take away from this weekend is that I made three good starts, but in truth, it’s been difficult. For some reason, we just couldn’t get a handle on the car in the dry and we need to probably come here and test to find out why.

“In the damp conditions on Saturday, I was right up there on the times and was easily matching the likes of Josh Cook and Tom Ingram, and they both came away with a podium on race day. We’ve battled understeer throughout the weekend and although we picked points in race one, it was tough.

“Things felt better by the start of race three but then Hunter made his move at the hairpin. I didn’t want to concede the position and he didn’t want to give up, and unfortunately that was that.”

The team now heads to Silverstone for the penultimate meeting of the season at the end of the month.

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