Eoin Murray’s high hopes for a strong return to BTCC action at Brands Hatch this weekend were dashed when a broken shaft in the gearbox of his arguscarhire.com backed Alfa Romeo 156. put him out of action. Having shed his ‘late entry ballast’ Eoin was rightly confident of a very strong performance at the Kent Circuit.
The opening lap of qualifying on Saturday proved the undoing of the team Quest Alfa when an output shaft from the Gearbox broke. Despite a huge effort by the team they were unable to source a replacement and set about repairing the damaged shaft.
Unable to complete the qualifying session on Saturday meant Eoin was forced to start from the back of the grid for the first of the three-race Touring Car program on Sunday.
Starting from the back of a 23-car grid, he picked his way through the back-markers over the opening lap. The safety car appeared for four laps and at the re-start he again showed fantastic pace in working his way up through the field for a further lap and a half until the repaired shaft again let go forcing him to retire from 16th position.
Speaking afterwards Murray commented ‘’ This has been a very frustrating weekend for me. We had a very good race setup and I proved this in the race setting quick times while I was overtaking and still something small was enough to put an end to our weekend. Team Quest have done a fantastic job, they did everything they could, however running on such a small budget means that we do not have access to an appropriate spares package and when something relatively simple as this occurs it puts us out for the full weekend.’’
Eoin's next race is at Silverstone on the 15th of October.
