Snetterton

Perhaps the biggest disappointment, though, was Alain Menut.

Prodrive arrived at Brands encouraged by its test at Snetterton, and Menut's podium at the previous round.

But that optimism disappeared very quickly once the BMW encountered the bumps around Brands' hatch.

Menut could manage only tenth on the grid, and his diagnosis was brutally simple.

It's pretty spectacular

in a week.

Yeah, so they tested new wheels at Snetterton and they thought they'd got to grips with the car a bit more.

As Andrew was saying, it was a new car for 92 and both teams were struggling at the start of the year to get it working.

So hopefully even after that big off he'll be, he'll be back and racing next weekend.

'Cause obviously earlier on in the season he had that big off at Snetterton as well back in July.

He had pelvis and neck injuries, and he missed the two races that weekend.

So yeah, another big off for him.

So it came about because of my links with Honda through the National Saloon Car Cup, and the same person that kind of oversaw motorsport when I was doing that oversaw the touring car team.

I think that was possibly the first year they'd set that test team up, but they'd got... super touring teams in not this country but also Germany and Belgium so they decided to set up this central car for testing run by a team at Brands Hatch and I actually got quite a few amortings in that car and it was a really good car it was a year old car but it was still on the money and I really enjoyed that we did a lot of the toker tests just before the touring car races so you're still with everybody and I remember one particular test at Snetterton I got the chance to try out a new engine management system And it was mega.

And I remember in the debrief afterwards, everyone's saying, oh, no, we need to test it some more times.

I remember pressurizing them, saying, it's really good.

And we did.

So he decided, let's do another one.

We went to Snetterton and first one at Silverstone, I drove, then he drove to Snetterton.

We decided to do it the other way around.

2007, she joined the Brit- Brit- uh, British Touring Car paddock, um, and, uh, the, anyone that walks through the paddock, fans, competitors, team members, if they see her, they know who she is, and, and she's always willing to talk to people.

Um, I've, I've had a short conversation with her previously before, while she was at Snetterton one day.

There you go.

So yeah.

...

I think we qualified 19th at that first round Superstock at, uh, Snetterton, and it was raining in pra- in qualifying.

I think he'd been pole and pole in the first two free sessions.

Yeah.

So yeah, I really gutted for them and obviously all the team.

I think it was quite tough seeing the drivers... understandably sort of look at you know feeling a bit down and everything after the race because it their opportunity at their championship had actually been taken away from them through through no fault of their own it's not like it was even contact or anything it was it was purely just a an unlucky mechanical failure you know obviously they had that one at Snetterton as well It's tough, and it's the highs and lows of motorsport.

But also with that GT4 fight, we obviously had Orton absolutely going at it on car 27 for pretty much the entirety of his stint.

It felt like he obviously caught up pretty soon and was right behind car 27, literally trying to stick a nose in in every single corner.