Dan Welch thanks fans and sponsors after winning race against time to get to Knockhill

Dan Welch’s Proton Gen-2 which was heavily damage in a start-line crash in Race 2 at Snetterton two weeks’ ago, took to the track at Knockhill after an intensive repair job, with the car having been completely rebuilt.

Welch had limited running in the last half of the session, which meant he finished down in 31st and last in what the 34-year-old describes as a shakedown run this weekend.

“(After Snetterton) I would have said there was no chance we could have been here,” said Welch to TouringCarTimes. “Everybody pulled together so hard to get us here; the sponsors, the fans; everybody got behind it and turned up with a great willingness. There’s been a tremendous amount of work to get us to this point, now let’s see if we can make it roll for the day.”

The team has reverted to a chassis used late last year with the damage to the team’s previous car too severe to continue.

“This is a car we used at the end of last year which had rear-end damage from a collision with (then Rob Austin Racing Audi driver) Hunter Abbott at Silverstone from memory, so it’s had a load of chassis work done and a lot of updates to bring it up to this year’s spec.

“(From the Snetterton crash) it wasn’t just the damage you could see; it was everything that was totalled in the car. I think we salvaged the steering column and the seat and that was about it. The engine mount was broken, the roll cage was bent, so the first run this morning is a bit of a shakedown.”