BTCC

Sam Tordoff: “I’m starting to feel like the unluckiest man on the grid”

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Credit: Matt Sayle

Team GardX with Motorbase driver Sam Tordoff had a torrid weekend at Donington Park in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship where he was hampered by electrical issues and suffered two DNFs.

The Donington weekend had started off promising for Tordoff as he was the pace-setter through most of the Saturday qualifying session. With five minutes to run, he was bumped down to third behind Josh Cook and Chris Smiley.

The first race started well where Sam managed to keep up his pace to stay in the podium positions. That was until lap ten when an electrical issue slowed the Ford Focus RS enough for him to have to pull into the pits for retirement.

Motorbase managed to repair the issues in preparation for race two where Tordoff had to start at the back of the field due to his first race DNF. Despite having to work hard to get something out of this race, Sam drove a calm and measured race to go from thirty first on the grid to eleventh at the flag. The Motorbase team’s hard work rewarded with five points.

Running on the harder tyre for the final race of he day, Sam had managed to overtake a few drivers on the opening lap before being punted off into the gravel at the Old Hairpin giving him his second DNF of the day. The contact he was involved with was completely unavoidable.

Shots of Tordoff and James Cole walking past the fans of the Craner Curves dejected, summed up the weekend for Sam Tordoff and the GardX with Motorbase team.

“We got off to a good start in race 1, but then developed a problem on lap 2 which affected the gear change.” Sam reflected about his first race.

“I managed to figure it out we were just as quick as everyone else despite losing time and I thought I could rescue a result and drag it out for the podium. Unfortunately the car just stopped on the exit to the old hairpin and that just about wrote the weekend off.”

“Race two was an exciting race and we were quick. It was a bit of a bittersweet result really as we shouldn’t have been starting from the back but we were happy with the performance of the car and we managed to work our way into the reversed grid draw.”

“Typically, lady luck wasn’t on our side again, and we missed the rub of the draw. We always knew that race 3 was going to be a tough call on the hard tyre which has struggled all weekend. We got off to a great start and I was sure that we could have at least held onto a top ten finish but we got taken out on the first lap and it was game over.”

Despite the bad luck so far this season, Sam is still hopeful that his luck will finally change, “I’m starting to feel like the unluckiest man on the grid at the moment.

“Yet again we’re super-fast and have nothing to show for it.  We’re doing everything right, but it’s just not going our way at all. But we’ll dust ourselves off in time for Thruxton and hopefully that’ll be a turning point and the podiums will start to flow!”

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About author
A BTCC fan turned writer with two degrees in Journalism and Media from Nottingham Trent University. Outside of motorsport, Stuart is an admirer of the London Underground and is often found listening to music. Covers the British Touring Car Championship and Renault UK Clio Cup.
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