Alain Menu has a strong end to a tough first weekend

Alain Menu bounced back from a slew of problems during his first weekend in the British Touring Car Championship since 2007. The 50-year-old was knocked off the track in race one, struggled on the soft tyre in race two, but charged from 16th to fifth in the final race of the day.

The Team BMR Volkswagen driver’s only blot on his copybook was an incident in race three with Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram. The two made contact with each other coming out of Graham Hill bend on lap 12, with Ingram’s Toyota spun around and into the barriers, retiring from the race.

The incident was investigated by the stewards long into the night, analysing the data from both of the teams’ cars, but it was finally deemed as a racing incident.

“(It was a) good end to a not so good weekend,” said Menu to TouringCarTimes. “Yes OK, we know we had the right tyre for the last race, that was a good move as we didn’t know how that would pan out.

“The car was good, I think we showed that in the last five laps of race one, I was as fast as the top two, as Jordon and Plato, so we’re not too far off the top guys.”

“In race two, we were still learning, we didn’t have enough camber for the soft tyre, the car was not very nice then, but that last race was good. I spoke to Ingram as I feel sorry for him and his team, but I’ve been there before as well. He kept coming across and I kept moving to the left but then we made contact. It’s a shame, as I don’t like throwing people off, it’s not me at all, later then with (Mat) Jackson it was almost the same through that kink, he kept coming across and we were going bang, bang. They don’t know when to give up, some of them.”

A power steering issue curtailed Menu’s running in free practice on Saturday which meant they had less time to work on set-up for qualifying, with Menu happy enough to qualify in the top ten, though the first race only lasted a corner as he was spun out by Nick Foster’s West Surrey Racing BMW at Paddock Hill bend.

“I take many positives from this weekend,” he added. “I learned a lot today in terms of the racing and of some of the other drivers, but also as a team; I think Aron (Smith) showed what the car was capable of in the first two races, we just need some luck on our side and a few bits and bobs, it’s a promising start.”