Five go free

Free practice problems for Supercar runners.

Free practice counts for little. Nothing in event terms, perhaps something bragging rights or head games. But failing to get a lap in is not the best start to the event. Five Supercar drivers have a big fat zero against their names after the first free session, and at least one of them doesn’t care.

“Free practice is for nothing here because the rain is coming and then everything changes,’ said René Münnich whose Skoda made it a few metres off the startline before stopping. “The gearbox broke. We had the whole summer break to change everything and put in new parts and they broke immediately. You should never change something that’s running okay!” said the philosophical German.

There were also gearbox problems for Patrick Van Mechelen who now wants rain. “I lost second and third gear, it’s a bad start. I have a spare gearbox but it’s an H pattern shift so it’s slower, the rain would be good for me now,” said the local favourite.

Electrical problems halted Pavel Koutny’s Fiesta, but the Czech has the car running now and hopes that the problem is solved. A month after ending the British championship here with power steering problems, Andy Scott has started this event with the same kind of dilemma. “A seal in the rack has failed. We had a problem getting parts to rebuild the racks because Sellholm was closed down for holidays,” said car builder Tony Bardy whose engineers have solved the problem to get Scott going for the second session. Liam Doran also failed to complete a lap, but engineer Graham Rodemark was not worried by the turbo hose problem that halted the Citroën C4. “We did not get the car back from America until Wednesday and it was basically wrecked. It’s been on the jig this week so something as minor as a turbo hose coming off is annoying but not a big problem really,” he said.