Mixed fortune for Eoin Murray at Rockingham for rounds 4, 5 & 6 of the BTCC at the weekend. Eoin qualified his Arguscarhire.com Alfa Romeo 156 in a very strong 5th position of a competitive 26 car field. This signalled the highest qualifying position for an Alfa Romeo in the BTCC in recent years.
Starting as top Independent behind the factor Seat & Vauxhall cars Eoin had a difficult first corner with a little contact from one of the BMW’s damaging his steering. This dropped him to 9th positition and despite the handling problems he managed to maintain his position to the finish. And expressed himself well please with a top ten finish despite the problems.
Race 2 and 3 proved fraught with difficulty. A huge crash on the 1st lap of race 2 eliminated 6 cars from the field including Eoin meant that he had to start the final race from 15th place. A solid start over the first half of the race saw him pick up 5 spots to lie in 9th place. After a safety car period on lap 9 the field closed up but on the restart he was hit hard from behind by Mike Jordon which broke the rear suspension on the Alfa and ended Eoin’s race.
Afterwards the young Dublin driver commented “I was delighted with the performance of the car during qualifying and the team did a great job this weekend however we will be working hard on the car before Thruxton to try and improve the car over a full race distance. Thruxton is one of my favourite tracks in Europe and my car should work well there so I can’t wait.”
Next race is Round 7, 8 & 9 at Thruxton on Sunday the 6th of May.
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