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Best Yet For Bell At Knockhill |
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Tuesday, 05 September 2006 |
Double points for BMW ace in Scotland
Despite never racing at Knockhill before, Barrow-upon-Humber racer Martyn Bell enjoyed his best weekend to date in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship during the annual trip to Scotland, scoring points in two of the three races.
The Geoff Steel Racing driver doubled his tally for the season at the picturesque 1.30 mile circuit north of Edinburgh and also secured his best race result since joining the BTCC at the start of the year with an eighth place finish in race two.
Qualifying on Saturday in damp conditions saw Bell qualify in 16th place, declaring himself pleased to have posted a time within half a second of the Honda Integra of David Pinkney. However the first race on Sunday would come to an early end when the BMW was unceremoniously fired off at the first corner on lap four following contact from the Peugeot of Richard Marsh.
“Adam Jones in the Lexus gave me a tap on the front wheel at the first
corner after we ran side-by-side along the start-finish straight,”
Martyn explained, “but then Richard Marsh decided to use me as a brake.
He totally missed his braking point and it almost changed the BMW into
a coupe.”
With the team doing a fantastic job in the limited time available to
prepare the car for the second race, Martyn took his place on the grid
and was turning consistent lap-times to sit on the fringes of the top
ten. Unlike in the opening race, luck was this time on Martyn’s side,
as two late incidents involving cars ahead moved the BMW into the
points in ninth place. Shortly before the final race, that would become
eighth – and a best result of the season – when SEAT’s Darren Turner
was excluded from the results for his car being underweight.
Although the BMW had sustained more damage after running over debris on
the circuit on the final lap of race two, the team repaired the car to
get Martyn on the grid for the final race and, starting from the fourth
row, he ran comfortably with the pack in the early stages. Lapping
consistently once again, he brought the car home in tenth place for his
second points finish of the weekend to reward the team for its work
throughout race day.
“The lads did a fantastic job to get the car out for the second race,”
Martyn said. “We put in consistent lap-times even though we had decided
to go with a conservative wet set-up and dry tyres because we weren’t
sure how the track would be – so it was hard work. I also ran over
Plato’s steering arm at the end of the race which punctured a hole in
the oil cooler for the gearbox so the car was filling smoke. I nearly
got towed in on the slowing down lap because if it had happened a few
laps earlier we’d have retired – otherwise we’d have lost the gearbox.
“In the last race I was running with the front pack until the Safety
Car came out and I was comfortable running with them. The lap times
were consistent again and as the season comes towards an end we are
really getting to grips with the car, but with every car I’ve had it
had taken me a season to get used to it.
“I’m pleased with how well we have done here given that it is tight and
twisty and shouldn’t really have suited the BMW. It wasn’t an easy
circuit to learn, especially in the wet, and to be honest with you, it
was like being at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! I’ve enjoyed the weekend
and the team is upbeat and happy. We don’t always look at results, we
look at consistency – and the consistency was there.”
Martyn now returns to the Brands Hatch Indy circuit where he endured a
baptism of fire in the BTCC earlier in the season but is hopeful that
he will enjoy another good weekend this time around.
“Brands never was my favourite circuit, and after April it certainly
wasn’t!” he said. “But I’m looking forward to it this time around. It’s
the first chance we will have had to get data we can look at
back-to-back which will be interesting. We had a lucky tenth in the
first round there earlier in the season but we worked hard for our
results here today and will do again when we head back to Brands in a
few weeks time.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 29 December 2006 )
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