James Nash was left feeling slightly frustrated after qualifying for the TCR International Series in Thailand, after a snapped driveshaft on his final run denied him the chance of beating Mat’o Homola to pole.
Nash had just posted a lap time which was a mere 0.004 seconds shy of Homola’s time in Q2 when his driveshaft snapped under braking for Turn 1.
The failure meant that Nash would not have any more chances to beat the Opel drivers time, leaving him second on the grid for Sunday’s first race.
“This circuit certainly throws up the odd challenge for me, but the results are always positive,” said Nash, also referring to the shunt last year that left him on the back foot in Thailand. “It’s a track that suits my style and I enjoy driving it.
“Just after setting my best lap time, I hit the brakes for the hairpin at Turn 3, where I had the crash last year, and the driveshaft just snapped. Thankfully, the time was already done but I was only four thousandths from pole so I’m disappointed with that.
“Looking ahead to tomorrow, my starts have always been pretty good so I’ll do what I normally do and I think I’ve got the race pace to pull away.”
Nash starts Sunday’s races with a strong chance of securing his second podium finish of the season, having only stood on the rostrum in Bahrain so far. The Brit’s last victory in TCR came at the circuit in 2016.
Race one takes place at 13:40 local time (08:30 BST, 09:30 CEST) on Sunday.