British Touring Car Championship team Power Maxed Racing has explained the ride-height failures that cost it pole position and third on the grid at Silverstone.
Aron Taylor-Smith topped qualifying at the wheel of his Vauxhall Astra for what would have been his first BTCC pole in nine years, while his team-mate, 2023 polesitter Mikey Doble, placed third.
But both Astras failed the ride-height test, as did the sixth-placed Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Dan Zelos, meaning Taylor-Smith, Doble and Zelos start 18th, 19th and 20th respectively.
“These things happen – it’s motorsport,” PMR boss Adam Weaver told Autosport. “Everyone’s gutted, but rules are rules.
“Even more frustrating is that the roller went under the car [of Taylor-Smith] everywhere except the side sill, and that wouldn’t give you the advantage to put it on pole.
“We know the cars are fast, and hopefully the guys can get something good out of the day.”
The wet-weather Goodyear tyres, onto which everyone moved after the dry first phase of qualifying, are known to have a smaller diameter than the slicks, so it is common practice in the BTCC for teams to raise their cars’ ride height when wet weather arrives, even during a race.
“The problem is it’s not like a button where you go 1-2-3-4-5-6 on ride height and everything’s clear,” said Weaver.
“In 10 years of being in the sport, we’ve never failed a ride-height test – another couple of psi in there and we might have passed.
“Unless the car is absolutely on the floor, it’s not something to give you enough of a performance advantage that you should get penalised for.”
PMR appealed the decision, and it is understood that this was based on the premise that the side sill was damaged while the crew worked on repairing the broken gear lever that ended Taylor-Smith’s Q1 session early.
But the appeal was never heard because it came outside the time limit and the stewards determined that “there are no valid grounds to extend the time limit in this instance”.
Regarding Doble’s car, Weaver said: “I think if they’d really pushed the roller it would have gone under. It’s so close.”
Regarding Zelos, the Mini Challenge champion completed just one flying lap in the final Q3 shootout, and the feeling at Excelr8 was that this may have prevented his tyre pressures from coming up to a level where the Hyundai could pass the test.
