 Bell at Donnington |
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Barrow-upon-Humber racer Martyn Bell endured a frustrating weekend at Donington Park [4 May] in his ‘home' round of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship season.
Bell went into the weekend looking to put on a good show for the fans who had made the short trip from Lincolnshire to cheer him on, but saw his challenge hit by tricky weather conditions that caught out a number of drivers on race day.
Having qualified in 21st place in his Arkas Racing with Sunshine.co.uk Astra Sport Hatch, Martyn enjoyed one of his strongest races of the season in race one and battled up towards the top ten before eventually taking the flag in 14th position.
Unfortunately for Martyn, things went wrong at the start of race two when Andy Jordan had an issue on the grid and the start was delayed. It meant the tyres on the Astra started to lose heat, and with light rain also starting to fall, Martyn was then caught out at the opening corner and spun, where he was collected by rivals Stuart Oliver and Alan Taylor.
The resulting damage forced him to retire from the race and despite hard work from the Tech-Speed run team to get him on the grid for race three, an issue with the radiator meant he pulled out before the race got underway to avoid damaging the engine on his car.
“Race one went really well for us but the weekend fell apart after the accident in race two,” he said. “It's a shame as we ran strongly in the opening race and I would have been higher if Chris Stockton hadn't managed to battle past and pushed me out wide.
“In the second race, the circuit was damp and the tyres were cold and I just lost the back end turning into Redgate. Unfortunately, it was right in front of Oliver and Taylor and the contact damaged the steering and that was it. Erkut took a big hit in that race too but luckily he was ok, although the same can't be said for his car!
“The boys worked really hard to get the car ready for race three but I had a little spin on the green flag lap as it was so slippery out there and it did some damage to the radiator. We didn't want to risk damaging the engine so that was it for us.
“I'm getting to grips with the car now and in the dry, I can fly – it's just in the wet when we've had a problem. However, hopefully we can get a good result next time out at Thruxton and get things back on track.”
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