Mondello Park, Ireland, June 13th, 2004

No luck in Ireland for Collard - Reigning Champion hits technical problems

The annual visit of the Green Flag MSA British Touring Car Championship to the Mondello Park circuit in Ireland proved a testing one for the reigning Independant Champion.

Rob Collard as the Hampshire racer left the Emerald Isle with just an 11th place finish as his best race result. In a weekend beset with technical problems, the small Collard Racing team worked flat out to keep Rob racing, but he was ultimately sidelined in the final round with an overheating engine just when a strong finish to turn the weekend round was on the cards.

A gearbox problem hit the Collard Racing Astra in Saturday morning's free practice sessions, limiting Rob to just four flying laps in the two forty-minute sessions. The lack of track time then caused the team problems going into the afternoon's qualifying, the handling of the Astra still not to Rob's liking - partly as a result of the success ballast from his fourth place at Oulton Park last year, extra lead weights now bolted to the floor of the car.

"Qualifying was frustrating," said Rob, from Eversley in Hampshire. "We were late out as we were still sorting the gearbox problem, and all the times were set early on before some oil went down. That messed up our plan and we didn't have time to change the tyres round, while the extra balast - the car now the heaviest we have run it - was still affecting the handling. The first race now becomes a tactical one, we are driving to set a good grid position in the second race now."

Rob's hopes for Sunday's first race were dashed in the opening seconds, a slipping clutch seeing him enter the first corner dead last, and almost 200 metres behind the rest. He fought back to finish 13th, leaving the team with a race against time to sort the problem before the second race just over two hours later.

"The car just didn't move when the clutch came up," said Rob. "It got better, but then we couldn't do the lap times, there was still a handling imbalance. The guys are now working hard - they may have to take the engine out to get to the clutch, and that isn't an easy job."

The crew worked flat out between races to change the clutch, just failing in time for Rob to take up his grid slot. Forced to start from the pit lane after the field has passed, Rob was up to 14th by the end of the first lap, and came home 12th, his Brackenwood Windows backed-car slowed in the final laps by a slow puncture to a damaged front tyre.

"The guys did wonders to change the clutch," praised Rob, "and I just had to go for it in the race, but I twice lost time behind other cars, including briefly going off passing one. I dropped down the order and lost places again - but by then the rest of the field had stretched out. The car was getting slower and slower the longer the race went on, and we've now found the front left tyre has a punture."

The Collard Racing team's luck was not to change in the final race of the day, Rob bringing his car into the pits on lap nine of the race as another technical problem struck.

"The engines temperature was rising during the race, and we suspect we have a head gasket problem," explained Rob. "I brought the car in as it wasn't worth continuing - we'd have destroyed the engine."

"If we had stayed in the race then a top five finish was on, but now it's been a disappointing weekend - one of those race meetings you want to forget."