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Welch Motorsport will miss Snetterton this weekend

Welch Motorsport will be absent from the upcoming round of the British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton, just a week after driver Andy Wilmot announced his departure from the team following technical problems experienced during the first five events of the season.

The team picked up their first points of the season at Oulton Park, with Dan Welch finishing 15th in the third race of the day.

The team has cited a parts supply issue as the reason it is forced to miss this weekend’s race at the Snetterton circuit in Norfolk.

“Naturally we are extremely disappointed to be missing the event at Snetterton this weekend,” said team principal John Welch.

“Whilst it has been a challenging season thus far we have been making extremely good progress in recent weeks and months, which Daniel’s points finish at Oulton Park was a direct result of.

“In our attempts to continue to move forward we made a decision to update our engines with what we saw as vital reliability-related parts. Unfortunately we have been let down by an overseas supplier in this regard and will not be able to complete the engine build until these components arrive,” he added.

“We have explained our position to TOCA and hope to have these parts in place in time for Knockhill later this month.”

With Wilmot set to miss the race regardless after parting company with the team, and now with Welch’s car also absent from the grid, the team are now in breach of the conditions of the TOCA BTCC Licence (TBL) for the second time this year, after Welch was forced to miss the season opening race at Brands Hatch due to both an injury and a late engine problem, which the organisers accepted as force majeure.

It’s down to the series’ organisers to decide whether the parts issue counts as another case of force majeure, or the team risks losing one or both of their guaranteed places on the grid for 2016.