David Pinkney was left “annoyed” after his qualifying efforts at Croft were delayed by a technical problem, then slowed by traffic as he looked to make amends.
Pinkney and his eponymous team came to the circuit, in North Yorkshire hoping to make up for a disappointing weekend at Oulton Park just a fortnight ago, and the Harpenden-based driver improved throughout the two practice sessions – his effort in the second session well over a second faster than his initial marker – good enough to finish just outside of the top ten positions.
He improved once more in qualifying, despite a troubled session, which saw him lose time at the start of qualifying as the team fixed a problem on the NGTC turbo engine Vauxhall Vectra.
“It wasn't a bad session in terms of the lap times, although I thought we might have got down to a 1min 25.6secs without that delay and a bit more time on track,” said Pinkney, going on to describe perhaps the most frustrating part of his session.
“It's a bit annoying that I'd just bolted on a new set of tyres and then got held up by Forster at Tower. At that part of the circuit, he's had the whole straight to see me coming behind with my headlights on and he wasn't even on a quick lap. However, we'll just aim to score some good points on race day.”
Andrew Dean, team manager was similarly positive ahead of Sunday's three races.
“We are surprised not to be higher on the times; we'd hoped to get into the top ten,” he said. “However, we're certainly happier than we were after qualifying at Oulton Park! The set-up changes we made have worked and we have gone quicker, but the guys at the front have pulled a rabbit from the hat again.”
“We were only three-tenths of a second behind Andy Jordan [in a similar NGTC Vectra] and we are confident of having a good race pace.”
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