Nicky Catsburg confirms brake failure as the cause of race-losing crash

Nicky Catsburg confirmed that a brake failure caused his race-ending crash in Race 2 in Morocco, which robbed the Dutch driver of a race victory on his touring car return with the BRC Racing Hyundai team.

The 31-year-old had placed his Hyundai i30 N TCR on pole position for the partially reversed grid second race at the Circuit Moulay El Hassan, and had out-started his veteran team-mate Gabriele Tarquini to lead into Turn 1, and was controlling the pace until lap ten.

At Turn 10, Catsburg’s car violently swerved left and into the tyre barriers, causing terminal damage to the car and causing him to also miss Race 3.

“It was total brake failure. It came from nowhere, I was heading into corner, and pushed the pedal and they weren’t there,” said Catsburg to TouringCarTimes.

“I was leading the race, so it wasn’t as though there was a problem cooling them. I went into the corner, realised the brakes weren’t there, and then steered the car into the tyre barriers, as I’d rather hit them than the concrete wall.”

The team tried frantically to repair the Lukoil-backed car ahead of Race 3 during the allocated repair time, but the front-end damage was too significant, and so he was unable to start the race.