Bruising weekend leaves Andy Priaulx left to fight another day

Andy Priaulx was left thinking what might have been at his home event of Thruxton after three tough races in the latest saga of the 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

Despite the Hampshire circuit being more than 100 miles from his front door on the Channel Island of Guernsey, Thruxton is Priaulx’s local circuit and the Team IHG Rewards Club driver kicked off his weekend by qualifying his BMW 1-Series in 5th.

Holding position in the opening encounter around the 2.36 mile circuit, the triple World champion’s race day soon turned sour to as contact through the high speed Allard corner on lap one of race two with Adam Morgan sent him into a spin, and it was too get worse as contact from behind when entering the Complex forced him to retire.

Fighting back from the rear of the field in the race three, Priaulx crossed the line in 13th to round off what turned out to be a tough day behind the wheel for West Surrey Racing.

“It’s a real shame that we were unable to score the points that our pace deserved this weekend,” Priaulx said. “I was pleasantly surprised with how quick we were during qualifying and felt that we would only get better on race day.

“The opener was a pretty exciting one and we were able to scramble back to fifth place but obviously race two was a disaster.

“The guys at West Surrey Racing worked tirelessly to get me back on-track and the car felt great after that. We made solid progress in race three and it was good to fight our way back into the points.”

Next month see’s the series head to Oulton Park and Croft, two circuits that down the years have played into the hands of rear-wheel-drive and more importantly, BMW.

He said: “We’re hoping that we get the breaks next time out at Oulton Park and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Priaulx is back behind the wheel this weekend as the European Le Mans Series heads to Imola.