Silverline Subaru BMR Racing has issued a statement confirming the team’s withdrawal from this weekend’s triple header of Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship races at Thruxton.
The four Subaru Levorg cars qualified 13th, 21st, 28th and 29th ahead of the Round 7 at 12:12 this afternoon, however the component that failed on James Cole’s car at Donington Park, leading to a large fire that damaged the chassis beyond repair on the day, has thrown up more issues and the team elected this morning to stop it’s quartet from competing at the Hampshire venue.
The decision has been taken by Warren Scott’s outfit to ensure that the cars can be properly repaired before next month’s visit to Oulton Park, where the team have predicted their package is set to come on form.
“It is with great disappointment that Silverline Subaru BMR Racing are withdrawing from rounds 7, 8 and 9 today at Thruxton on safety grounds,” commented an official statement from the team.
“Following an incident with James Cole at Donington where there was a failure of the high pressure fuel rail there was a re-designed and re-manufactured component fitted to all cars for the Thruxton event. Following a review of the new design post qualifying, the new part has shown signs of fatigue that could lead to a similar failure,”
“We have investigated all avenues available to us overnight and this morning, however the engineering team have taken the decision to withdraw the cars as none of the solutions available are able to be durability tested prior to competing on circuit.”
“We are obviously disappointed with the outcome, however in this situation the risk to the drivers, other competitors and circuit officials is not acceptable, so the correct decision is to retire the cars for the remainder of the event.”
TouringCars.net understands that the decision has no impact on Team BMR’s TBL (TOCA BTCC Licence) allocation and the withdrawal has been considered an instance of ‘force majeure’, thereby allowing them to not participate without losing the licence. The team also technically competed in the weekend as a result of both free practice sessions and qualifying yesterday, and as such the matter is closed, with regards to TBLs.