Photo: TCR Media

Slipped tyre the likely cause of James Nash’s monster crash on Friday

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James Nash was back on circuit in Free Practice 1 at the Buriram International Circuit after an all-night repair job by Craft-Bamboo Racing to put together his SEAT León TCR, with the team’s analysis of the accident concluding the tyre slipped on the wheel rim into Turn 3.

The bizarre accident saw Nash spin out of control at the fastest corner on the circuit and into the barriers backwards, with the León TCR suffering significant damage.

The car was repaired and back on circuit in FP1, setting a handful of laps to test out the handling of the repaired car.

“Just about everything feels OK, but there’s still some work to do,” said Nash to TouringCarTimes.

Reflecting on the crash in testing, Nash explained:

“The rim inside the tyre stopped but the tyre continued to turn, which is why I had no braking effect. When you watch the video footage, you can see the smoke coming out of the side of the rim but the first clue for us was there were no flat spots on the tyre.”

The analysis of the cause is so far inconclusive.

“We think it’s a combination of things,” he said. “Maybe Michelin put too much grease on the tyres; the tyres also weren’t up to temperature and we had quite low pressure, also the track temperature was really high, and it just slipped. It’s nice to know the problem, but there’s no resolution to stop it happening again.

“You normally get a bit of slippage of the rim, and often in GT cars, but not for it to slip completely.”

The team worked until 6am to repair the car for Free Practice 1, with the battered car taking to the track to set six laps.

“The team have been really busy,” said Nash. “Sergey (Afanasyev)’s had an engine change and obviously there was the damage on my car, so the team had a really tough night. They’ve all done a fantastic job and I hope I can give them something back.”