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[BTCC] Bell Looks To The Positives |
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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 |
BELL LOOKS TO THE POSITIVES
Tough weekend for BMW team heading to summer break
Martyn Bell and the Geoff Steel Racing team are looking forward to the remainder of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship despite a tough weekend at Thruxton.
The fourth round of the season saw the Barrow-upon-Humber ace give the new sequential gearbox in his BMW 320i its first run, although problems over the course of the weekend meant Martyn and the team were unable to show the full potential of the car.
In optimistic mood after an improved showing in the last round at Oulton Park, and with the troublesome H-pattern gearbox having been replaced, Martyn was forced to deal with an issue with his power steering that meant the system would switch itself off – leading to a trip across the grass around the high-speed run from Village to Church during the opening practice session.
“As I was coming through Village, the power steering switched itself off,” he explained afterwards. “I grabbed a big armful of steering and then it came on again and it is probably the biggest moment I have ever had without crashing in motor-racing. I knew the car would either bite into the grass and roll, or it would slide and I’d save it and luckily we saved it.”
With ‘Skip’ and his team working hard to fix the issue, Bell headed into qualifying looking to make the most of his new gearbox but a problem with the suspension prevented the BMW from setting a quick lap and led to a late night as the team replaced it.
Lining up on the grid for the opening race, Martyn lost time on the opening lap when Fiona Leggate spun in front of him, but then became embroiled in a race long battle with the Lexus of Adam Jones that the circuit commentators admitted was one of the most interesting on track.
“Fiona got it wrong round the back and I almost had to park as a result and it meant the Lexus got past,” he said. “I managed to catch him and it was really good as we were swapping places and lining each other up all the time. I was getting the blue flags on the last lap so I thought I’ll move over to let the quicker car past, but Fiona came through too! It meant I lost the place but never mind – these things happen.”
However the bad luck returned for the second race when driveshaft failure off the line put Martyn out on the opening lap, and he was then forced to watch on for the final race as no replacement was available.
Despite the disappointment, Martyn and his team can now look forward to a six week break in the action before the next round at Croft, with work ongoing in the meantime to help try and move up the order.
“We’ll use up some of our testing days during the break and hope to go to Croft with a good handle on the suspension and put on a good show for the remainder of the season,” he said. “We have to remember that we are new to this and are only four races in, but I have a great team around me and there are still a lot of positives that we can take. We can race the thing now, we have some suspension that we can work with, and we have a lot of interested parties who want to get involved and who want to see this work - I certainly do.
“The gearbox is certainly a huge positive and I thought all my birthdays had come at once when I drove that and now we have to turn the negatives in positives.”
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