Aiden Moffat was adamant that another strong British Touring Car Championship weekend escaped his clutches after a disappointing Sunday at Rockingham.
An impressive performance during qualifying on Saturday saw Moffat snatch eighth on the grid for the opening race of the weekend.
But his fortunes a day later could scarcely have been more contrasting as Moffat charted just three points, with a 13th-place finish in race two sandwiched by two retirements, the second of which coming when he was collected by Hunter Abbott’s Audi A4, having earlier had contact with team-mate Adam Morgan.
The Scotsman was all the more frustrated given the pace he had been able to show in clean air, and speaking to TouringCars.Net Moffat said his set of results made for a disappointing weekend.
“Race One we were on the softs and we didn’t get the setup right for them at all – the car felt horrible,” he said. “It wasn’t just a drop off, even from lap one there was no grip so we couldn’t get a good time.
“As a result, the tyres were harder work and that’s why I went off – that pretty much ruined my race one. That made Race Two difficult but we did well to come from 28th to 13th – had we started further up we would have been comfortably in the top ten.
“The last race was going well; I started 13th [and] we were up with [Sam] Tordoff – I had the pace on him, I knew I could get past.
“I think we could have been in the top five and maybe pushed hard to catch the top guys because we had a lot of pace in the car but unfortunately we had some initial contact with Adam.
“With [Hunter] Abbott, I was looking for my exit from Turn 2 and the next thing I knew I was going backwards and thrown about the car. It’s not ideal – it’s damage we could do without really – but that’s part of racing.”
Moffat was visibly aggrieved by his race three incidents but acknowledged that there was little that could be done about either clash.
“We’ve spoken about it, there’s nothing to really comment on,” he said of his collision with Morgan. “He was struggling on his tyres and when he understeered it was me there. Going into the left-hander he didn’t see me so that’s where the contact came from.
“He [Abbott] reckons the front-right tyre went,” he continued, describing his exit from the race. “He couldn’t have said sorry more times to be honest – I think I was still a bit dazed when he came running over.
“It’s one of those things, I don’t think Hunter tried a daft move, he just got unlucky, had a problem and I was the one to receive [contact].”
And the 18 year-old struggled for any constructive analysis of the meeting, despite displaying impressive form for a second-successive race weekend.
“It’s always a positive, the pace we’ve got in the car, but it’s a bit hard to see this weekend after how it started and what’s happened.
“The start of it we had pace and the way we planned to attack the weekend, we felt confident of another podium. I think if things had gone differently in that race [three] we would have had a chance – I’m not saying we would have got it but we’d have had a shot from 13th never mind if we’d got a better starting position.
“It shows we’ve got more pace [and] it wasn’t just Knockhill, but it’s never a nice way to end the weekend.”