An engine problem and race one tangle saw Ayrton Simmons leave Thruxton sixth in the championship.
The Arden driver’s engine lacked power throughout the weekend, on a track where “96% of the track is completely at full throttle”, and left Simmons frustrated.
“We were a bit down on power, the whole weekend,” he told Overtake Motorsport. “It’s something for Ford to look at, definitely.
“Hopefully it’ll be fixed for Oulton. We’ll see what the team and the guys from Ford decide what to do.”
The problem put Simmons on the backfoot going into the first race, when he started 10th. Things only got harder when, at the start of the race, a near-miss saw him fall to the back of the pack.
“I managed to gain two or three positions off the start which is really good and positive and then I had a bit of a tangle,” he said. “I ended up losing because I was around the outside. I had no choice otherwise it would have been a huge crash. I don’t think there was much contact but I dropped to dead last.”
Simmons was able to recover from the incident, picking his way up through the field to finish eighth, but believes a podium would have been possible without the set bat.
A simpler race two allowed the teenager to pick up more points, but the final race of the weekend would be another battle. An off track exertion at the start of the race dropped Simmons to the back of the field, a position he wasn’t able to come back from.
Simmons heads to Oulton Park eighth in the championship but, with seven rounds remaining, there’s plenty of time for him to recover.
Feature image credit: Caroline Rhea
