Turkington blames hybrid for Brands Hatch BTCC qualifying woe

Turkington, who is fourth in the points, will line his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport up in 10th place on the grid for the opening race, some way behind the three drivers who are ahead of him in the points.

The Northern Irishman was allowed 4.5s of hybrid boost per lap for qualifying under the BTCC’s success penalty regulations, but found it difficult to access this.

It came on top of the hybrid woes he suffered during the second and third races in the penultimate round at Silverstone, where he slumped from the championship lead to fourth in the standings, 27 points adrift of the summit.

“It was just a nightmare of a session,” Turkington told Autosport. “The same frustrations and issues as we had at Silverstone raised their heads.

“Since my first lap in qualifying, the hybrid failed again just as the tyres were at their peak.

“I came to the box for a system reset, went back out, and the hybrid malfunctioned for a second time.

“I was in the pits when the track was at its best, and the session was severely compromised.

“The bigger issue is that it’s obviously not fixed because they don’t know what the problem is.”

Turkington improved on his final run, but not enough to put him among the leading title contenders on the grid.

Colin Turkington, Team BMW BMW 330e M Sport

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“As soon as I tried to use it [the hybrid], it would malfunction,” he said.

“For the last run I had to drive around it and adjust what I was doing.

“It was a compromise and it’s massively frustrating because the car felt good, but I spent more time in the pits than on the track.”

Turkington’s fellow BMW driver Adam Morgan also spoke out about the frustrations suffered by himself and Ciceley Motorsport team-mate George Gamble, particularly during the second half of the season.

The Ciceley pair have faced a series of complete shutdowns of their cars, marring their race weekends.

“You just feel, ‘When is it ever going to end?’” Morgan, who qualified sixth at Brands without problems, told Autosport.

“At the minute we don’t have any faith that it’s up to scratch.

“If there’s anything we could do to the cars, we’d have done it. Any change of loom, battery, IPS – it has all been done.”