TouringCars.net understands that Sam Tordoff is to change the engine on his BMW 125i M-Sport prior to the second British Touring Car Championship race of the afternoon at Croft.
Tordoff went off in avoidance of a spinning Daniel Lloyd at the first corner, picking up gravel and debris in his radiator as a result. Engine temperatures continued to soar under the bonnet of the Team JCT600 with GardX car and, were it not for a safety car near the race’s conclusion, Tordoff believes he would have been forced to retire.
He entered the race as the championship leader but heads into race two placed second, albeit level on points with returning standings leader Matt Neal.
Tordoff also explained his presence on the outside line was due to a good start, and was aiming to emulate Lloyd’s move to the outside of Colin Turkington’s Subaru Levorg had the Eurotech Honda succeeded in its efforts.
“I got such a good start, it put me on the outside in no man’s land, and then I tried to go around the outside with Dan [Lloyd] and I just went off avoiding that.” he explained.
“That could have been the start of our engine problems, we just got some gravel or debris in the radiator. It seemed okay for the first half of the race but then in the last eight laps all of the temperatures went through the roof. I think the only thing that saved me was the three-lap safety car at the end.” reasoned Tordoff.
Tordoff became the first championship contender to use the harder compound of Dunlop tyre away from Thruxton and admitted the tyre degradation was good, but the tyre lacked in race performance as a whole.
“Degradation was good, there was just never any grip in them to start with! We’ve got them out the way, that’s the important thing.”
Looking ahead briefly to the second race, which gets underway at 14:39, Tordoff revealed he is aiming to copy the recent strategy of Halfords Yuasa Racing and score a strong result in the reverse grid race later today.
“New engine, weight out of the car and normal tyre again – I think we’ll be fine. We should get back into the top ten and hope for a reverse grid.”