Stephen Jelley foiled by changing conditions at home race

Team Parker Racing’s Stephen Jelley said a top 10 qualifying was on the cards at his home race at Donington Park before mixed conditions put pay to his ambitions.

Jelley, who hails from nearby Leicester, ended up 17th on the grid in his BMW 125i M-Sport after encountering changing conditions at nearly every corner.

The 36-year-old, who was one of the stars of the opening race weekend at Brands Hatch, said he could have found another 0.5s in the car in better weather.

“I think we were a little bit unlucky with the weather window. I went out and went at it early just in case it rained, and we were right there at the beginning,” Jelley told TouringCarTimes.

“But I got a bit of traffic and got held up behind a few cars coming out of the pits, so I didn’t quite get the optimum lap time. We changed to our next set of tyres and I was on a lap when the red flag came out, which was frustrating.

“The conditions seemed to be changing a corner at a time and it was quite a stressful situation. If we’d have carried on in that dry spell without the red flag, there was another half a second in the car.”

Jelley said he was unable to string the perfect lap together during the remainder of the 30-minute session, but remained confident of making forward progress on race day.

“There were a couple of times where I’d drifted the car down the Craner Curves, got through the Old Hairpin but locked up at McLeans or run wide at Coppice just because it had rained a little bit more,” he said.

“It was just a bizarre session – I’m frustated as I think the car could have done a top 10. The aim for Sunday is to progress throughout the day. The car’s got good pace and it looks like it is going to be dry.”