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It will go down as one of the few weekends that Michael will want to forget.
His
pace during Friday’s practice sessions will show that Michael’s ENGEN
Xtreme Audi A4 was always going to be challenging for race honours.
This however was not to be as a series of technical woes conspired to
go against him.
Qualifying began with a bang, literally.
“Exiting Nashua I heard this horrendous noise and lost drive.” With the
car stricken on the track, Michael managed to single-handedly push his
charge back to the pit complex. The technicians found that his clutch
had exploded.
The team worked frantically to have the car ready
for race 1 but the flywheel had been extensively damaged which made it
virtually impossible for the timing sensor to send a plausible signal
to the computer. With the engine ailing, Michael retired the car after
4 laps in order to give the team more time to repair the problem.
Try
as they did, the problem persisted and Michael limped the stricken Audi
around the Kyalami circuit for 10 long laps. He was rewarded by 2
points for his seventh place, which will go toward his already
impressive points tally for the year.
Michael lies 5th in the title race, a single point clear of his team-mate, Shaun Watson-Smith.
“Although
I am disappointed, I realise that this type of technical problem will
happen, sooner or later, to all of my opponents. It is a part of racing
and I accept that. I look forward to Killarney, one of my favourite
circuits and hope to have my share of good fortune there.”
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