“On Friday and early Saturday it looked to be a very promising weekend, but it didn’t turn out that way in the end unfortunately.” commented Michael.
On Friday the track was very wet with rain continuing throughout the practice rounds. The Opel Astra OPC was running nicely and seemed to have the pace. During the second practice round the team kept with the dry setup and ended up second fastest. The 3rd practice was the wettest of all, the team changed to a wet setup and ended the final practice round fastest.
On Saturday morning the track was still damp but the car was going well and the team qualified on pole position. With the sky’s clearing it was good to know the Michael and the Williams Hunt Opel Astra had the pace to be competitive in the dry. In race 1 Michael had a comfortable lead, but due to technical issues had to slow down drastically managing to finish 2nd. With the reverse order start for the second race Michael started 3rd but with the technical problem that the team were unable to resolve in the ten minute break, Michael could not really compete finishing 5th.
In the 3rd race Michael started in 2nd position but after the start lost one position. While challenging the first 2 cars another technical problem emerged. The car started with a gearbox problem and resulted in loss of 4th, 5th and 6th gears. From there on Michael couldn’t really compete and managed to finish 5th in both of the final races of the day.
Next race – East London, 3 September 2011.
