Team HARD’s Mike Epps was critical of contact in the mid-pack of the British Touring Car Championship field at Snetterton, which resulted in his third point-less weekend of the season.
Epps showed potential in Saturday’s qualifying session to put his Volkswagen CC in 12th on the grid for the first race, but a driveshaft failure led to an early retirement from the opening encounter.
Although Epps initially lost ground in the first race, he was soon in the top ten before he was forced to retire on lap six.
Epps then made progress from 29th on the grid to finish in 18th in race two, leaving him with a stronger starting position for the final race of the day despite the lack of points.
In the end contact with Rob Austin on the opening lap of the race, followed by contact from Jason Plato on lap four, put an end to Epps race once and for all.
“It’s been another up and down weekend,” said Epps. “The practice sessions were difficult and we found a lot of time from those to do well in qualifying, but luck deserted us in the first race with the driveshaft when we were running well and left us on the backfoot for the rest of the day.
“The racing in the final two was just generally too messy. We came through well in race two, but that was difficult and wasn’t without some contact from others, and then race three was just carnage, there must have been five or six cars make contact with me.”
Epps was resolute that the racing around him was too physical on Sunday, which prevented him from matching team-mate Jake Hill’s trio of points finishes.
“Sadly I’m not surprised by some of the ‘racing’ I saw on track, and it’s made more frustrating by the fact that Jake showed the performance was there in the car to be battling in the top ten and without the failure, I’m hugely confident I’d have been up there with him all day.
“I haven’t seen a points finish though and that’s due to a lack of reliability with the car and a lack of responsibility from the other drivers.
“I don’t think we can expect much better at Knockhill, so I’ll grin and bear it until Rockingham where I think we can really show our true pace.”