Dave Newsham continued to experience teething problems in early running in the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, with the BTC Norlin racer failing to get a proper lap in during first practice.
Newsham, who has just two points on the board after a poor season-opener at Brands Hatch, experienced issues with two turbos and a gearbox in early running at Donington Park, leaving the Scot with just the 30th best time in the field.
However Newsham is confident in his pace, and insists that he has yet to show it during the 2017 season so far.
“I think our pace towards the end of both of those [second and third] races at Brands was as good as the leaders,” said Newsham to TouringCars.Net. “We’ve got the pace but we just haven’t shown it yet.
“I know if we don’t have any more issues we’ll be there or thereabouts. We can’t afford to be at the back of the grid again – it ruins your weekend.”
Newsham believes that he has a strong chance of getting into the top ten in qualifying if the team can get to the bottom of the various issues which he has been experiencing.
“[Our pace] is top ten. It was top ten all weekend at Brands. If you analyse the data on the clear lap we did towards the end of the last race we were as quick as anyone, so that’s encouraging.
“We just haven’t had the rub of the green – in pre-season testing in Spain we had the legs on just about everybody over there, and consistently so. It’s always difficult to see what people are doing in testing, but we just haven’t shown the pace we’ve got yet.
“We just need to be able to get rid of some of these issues we’ve got, get into our stride and start scoring some points.”