David and Team A-Tech arrived at Croft for the latest outing of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) on Friday afternoon with high expectations, having implemented changes to the car expected to both improve the handling of the car and prolong tyre life.

For the first time since the start of the 2007 season, new front shock absorbers were fitted to David's Alfa Romeo 156 and David spent most of Saturdays practise setting up the car accordingly. The team believes they are the best shock absorbers for this application on the market, however, finding the right set-up in the space of two short practise sessions turned out to be rather difficult.

The other changes which were applied to the car since Thruxton – a successful weekend which saw David leading race three for six laps – did not produce the handling enhancement anticipated and qualifying proofed to be difficult, David and the team not having found the optimum set-up for the Circuit and conditions.

A resulting qualifying position of 15th position,1.77sec. off the pole position time was all that could be achieved in the end, and meant David would have another eventful first race in the thick of
the action.

As David joined the grid for race one, the car developed a clutch fault which was hastily investigated on the grid, but with the three minute board being shown, the team run out of time to resolve
the problem.

David did manage to get the car off the line at the start but it was not a “good start” as anticipated with this sort of problem. At the end of the first lap, David was running in 17th position and by lap three had climbed up the order into 15th place. On lap four, however the Vauxhall Astra of Erkut Kizilirmak lost control at turn one and in rejoining the circuit hit David repeatedly on the left rear quarter. This resulted in David crashing into a tyre stack on the infield and badly damaging the front of the car.

The team had the usual “race against time” to repair the car for race two and whilst Dave did take his place on the grid and start the race it became apparent that the incident in race one had coursed more damage than first diagnosed in the time available.

The decision was taken to pull out of the race on lap nine, and the team went to try and further diagnose the problem in time for the last race of the day.

With the car still displaying its battle scars from race one but now mechanically up to speed, David took up his 18th position on the grid for race three.

By lap eight the he was up to 12th position, but the Alfa did not have the pace to challenge for positions. The team had to settle for five valid points in the Independent Drivers Championship.

After an expensive weekend both financially in repairing the cars and in terms of lost opportunities to score more points, but the team still left the North Yorkshire venue with a positive feeling after David’s team-mate, Richard Marsh, lapped just over a second a lap off the race winning pace.

David and the team will now regroup and prepare for the BTCC’s next rounds at Oulton Park on 23rd and 24th June.