Date: 28.06.10
James Walker took a sixth place finish in the first of the
Superleague Formula races at the Nürburgring in Germany on Sunday,
despite battling with technical problems throughout the day.
After two good practice sessions James went into qualifying
confident of a good showing. He took third place in his group in
the first session and then waited in the car for the draw to be
made for the quarter finals. When he was called the team
fired up the Liverpool FC car but, just as James left the pits, he
realised he had no brakes! When he pressed the brake pedal
nothing happened until the pedal was practically on the
floor. He subsequently found out that as he had waited the
brake fluid had boiled, filling the system with air bubbles.
"I had no choice but to carry on with my lap," said James. "If I
didn't register a time I would be put to the back of the grid and
that's the last thing I wanted. I managed to complete a lap but it
was 10 seconds off the pace. All wasn't lost though and once
all the qualifying was complete I was in sixth place on the grid
for the first race."
James got away well at the start of race one and was running
strongly, right up until the pit stops. He made a great move
on Robert Doornbos, passing the Dutchman down the inside into Turn
One just before James came in for his stop. Unfortunately he lost a
couple of seconds in the pits as when he went to leave there were
two cars coming through in the fast lane.
When the chequered flag fell James was in sixth place, slightly
disappointed, as he could have been as high as fourth, but fired up
for race two.
Unfortunately the technical troubles returned in race two but this
time the gremlins were in the transmission. As James set out
on the warm up lap he got stuck in second gear. As the race
started James dived into the pits for repairs and rejoined a lap
later. It looked like the problem was fixed but there was clearly a
leak in the system and a few corners later James was stuck in
fourth gear.
"We had no choice at this point other than to retire from the
race," said James. "It's frustrating as we could have got a good
result and made it into the Super Final again. The car was
really quick this weekend so it's a shame we had technical
problems. We go onto Zolder now, which is a track I don't
know. I've heard it is a great circuit though so I'm looking
forward to getting out there and getting some good points in the
bag."
The Zolder round of Superleague Formula takes place in three weeks'
time.