 No Sunshine but alot of Rain |
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Barrow-upon-Humber racer Martyn Bell achieved his aim of three finishes at Rockingham on Sunday (13 April) on a difficult weekend of racing in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship.
The Arkas Racing with Sunshine.co.uk driver was forced to contend with mixed weather conditions throughout the weekend at the Northamptonshire circuit, but managed to secure his best finish to date with the Astra Sport Hatch to set him up well for his home round at Donington Park next time out.
Having lost valuable track time with a mechanical issue in the second free practice session, the Tech-Speed team worked superbly to replace the engine on Martyn's car ahead of qualifying and he responded by putting the Astra in 20th on the grid for race one after a session that started wet before the circuit dried out.
Sunday's opening race proved to be the opposite, as a mid-race shower led to tricky conditions for the drivers on track, but Martyn was able to come home in 18th place - just outside the Independents' points scoring positions.
In race two however, Martyn battled past the sister Arkas Racing car of team-mate Erkut Kizilirmak to take the final Independents' point in 17th before a torrential downpour hit the circuit as the field completed the green flag lap ahead of the final race of the weekend.
After the initial start was aborted, Martyn decided to start the race from the pitlane to stay out of trouble and drove a careful race to ensure he brought the car home in one piece, eventually taking the flag in twelfth – just two places shy of an overall points finish.
“It's been a bit of a bittersweet weekend really, but it's been ok,” he said. “It is difficult to try and learn the car when it's dry, never mind when you have the kind of conditions we had over the weekend. We were caught out a little bit by the shower in race one, but in the dry in race two, I got the hang of it again. In race three, I had a full dry set-up on the car and I wasn't prepared to put it in the wall so I took it easy to just keep learning about the car and learning about front-wheel drive.
“The series is a marathon, not a sprint so we can examine what we have been able to learn this weekend and now look forward to Donington Park, which is always special for me as it's the closest thing I have to a home race. Hopefully we'll have some good weather by then, but knowing the British climate, it'll probably snow!”
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