Sam Tordoff: We need to go “back to the drawing board”

Sam Tordoff said he feels he needs to go “back to the drawing board” after a tough weekend on track as the BTCC season resumed at Snetterton.

The Motorbase man was hoping to use the special Diamond Double meeting to kickstart his season after a tough opening half of the year, where his pace at the wheel of his Ford Focus RS hadn’t been reflected in his results on track.

Eighth on the grid for race one, Tordoff was able to master the tricky wet conditions to take fifth spot and then followed it up with sixth in race two despite struggling for outright pace on the drying circuit.

The Diamond Double – with double points on offer – would prove to be a disappointment however as, from 16th on the grid, he was forced out with damaged suspension whilst trying to battle his way forwards into the top ten.

“It’s a bit disappointing really,” he said. “We’ve lacked pace this weekend, which is the first time this year and we still don’t know why. We were fast in the wet in race one and we carried that forward in race one in the dry on the soft tyre, but then in the third equal weight race we were nowhere.

“I got a great start from 16th to eleventh and it was looking good but I didn’t have any pace in the car so was immediately on the back foot and struggling to fight. We then got contact which broke the left rear and that was the end of that.

“We need to go away and back to the drawing board. We have a test planned this week so hopefully we can put a few things into practice there. All things considered, fifth and sixth was a good result. Race three was more reflective of our pace and unfortunately the damage comes with the territory of being in that mid pack.”