Ollie Jackson's Donington Park weekend was shortened by technical problems (Photo Credit: Chris Gurton Photography)
AmD Tuning.com had a very frustrating weekend during the second round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, leaving the circuit with no race finishes after a series of issues meant their VW Golf couldn't run.
The team went into the weekend eager to score points after their successful season opener where Ollie Jackson took a double points finish for the team at Brands Hatch in the season opener.
The weekend didn't start well for the team after an alternator issue forced Jackson to return top the pits without setting a time in the first practice session. The second session fared better for the Attleborough-based driver with Jackson taking 20th while nursing a brake issue.
After an overnight engine change, Jackson lined up on the grid in 19th to start the first race of the day. Jackson found himself off the pace after the engine was incorrectly mapped. A number of visits to the pits later saw Jackson not classified in the race results.
The team took the decision to withdraw from the following two races to avoid causing further damage to the engine and are now looking ahead to Thruxton in a week's time.
Reflecting on the Donington weekend, Jackson said: “We'd had our issues on Saturday but the braking issue was sorted for race day and the car was handling really well; we were just down on speed because of the mapping issue.”
With Donington proving to be one of the stronger circuits for the VW Golf, team boss Shaun Hollamby shared Jackson's disappointment: “It's a shame as we showed good pace at Brands Hatch and we should have gone even better here. However, it wasn't to be. We've now got to sort the problems out and make sure we are up to speed at Thruxton so Ollie has a car that he can challenge with and we will go there aiming to show the kind of speed we showed last year.”
Jackson insisted: “It's been tough, but we'll fight back from it.”
