Sam Tordoff happy to leave Croft as points leader after a dramatic day
West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff leaves Croft with a 12-point lead in the drivers’ championship over team-mate Rob Collard, despite a day fraught with problems.
The BMW driver had an engine problem in Race 1 which saw him finish down in 13th, leading to a tight turnaround engine change for Race 2, and then just missed out on victory in a rain-hit Race 3 to fast-charging Ashley Sutton.
The 27-year-old considers the outcome of the day a positive one, with chief rival Matt Neal’s best result a tenth in Race 2 in the Honda, even though he scored the least of the three West Surrey Racing BMW drivers during the day.
“(It was) a mixed day, but we still scored some really good points, and after the trouble free weekend we had at Oulton Park, this has been a fright from the word go,” said Tordoff to TouringCarTimes.
“We had an engine failure in Race 1. We just managed to get to the end and I don’t really know how, and then the boys did an engine change between Races 1 and 2, and it was only the fact that there was a ten-minute delay for Race 2 that allowed us to make the start of the race, so I owe everything to them, as the Race 2 result catapulted us on the podium for Race 3.”
In Race 3, Tordoff led the bulk of the race which had seen the rain falling in the build-up and throughout, before he was caught and passed by rookie Ashley Sutton, who snatched the lead in his Triple Eight MG with two laps to go.
“In the early part when it was just moist the car felt good,” added Toroff. “But the heavier the rain got I was starting to struggle, and Ash was on a bit of a mission and came through and was quick and has nothing to lose.
“I thought with two laps to go after the safety car I could hold him off, but I had a wild moment at Barcroft and by the time I finished gathering it up he was already down my inside. After the day we’ve had, second was good enough.”
Although Tordoff effectively leaves Croft with an extended lead in the championship, it was Sutton and the Team BMR Subaru of Colin Turkington who both took the most points from the weekend, with Tordoff adding the fast-developing Subaru Levorg will be a real threat in the last half of the year.
“We can’t count them out. They’ll go to Snetterton with no ballast on and (Turkington will) probably be somewhere near the front. But the more he does that, the more ballast he’s going to get and then he’ll be getting to the point where he’s carrying a reasonable amount of weight (into the weekend).
“We’ve got to keep an eye out for them, but at this point we’ve got to just keep scoring points and not think about the championship as there’s a hell of a long way to go.”
