Tom Boardman left Silverstone last weekend understandably frustrated and disappointed after failing to secure a top ten in either of the three races in round seven of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The weekend started well for the Lancastrian as he showed good pace in the Special Tuning SEAT Leon which allowed him to secure 12th place on the grid just one-tenth of a second outside a top ten grid spot.

During the first race of the day Boardman was able to get up to as high as 11th place but he lost out to Shedden during the latter stages of the race thus dropping him back to 12th place.

Boardman would start the second race from yet-again, 12th on the grid and within a lap was in 10th place after overtaking the Vectra and BMW of Nash and Jackson respectively but an incident ahead of him meant that he would have to yield which resulted in Nash colliding with Tom sending him sideways and losing many places. The resultant spin left Boardman down in 16th but a fired up Boardman clawed his way back up to 12th where he would finish.

Still Boardman was waiting for his top-ten finish but bad luck would strike once again during race three as a starter motor failure on the grid meant that he would be unable to get away for the parade lap and would have to start the race from the pit-lane.

A crash on the grid of the opening lap meant that the safety car would appear which brought Boardman right up to the back of the pack but yet another incident put a halt to Tom’s progress. This time it was Andy Neate who tagged Tom by clipping the back wheel of the SEAT Leon which caused damage to the rear sub-frame causing Boardman to retire.

Speaking after the third race, Boardman said, “We’re lucky that the damage isn’t as bad as it was after the last round at Snetterton. The team put together a strong package this weekend but with the mechanical issue and the two impacts we haven’t been able to demonstrate our full potential again. The car felt great for those laps I was able to complete, so hopefully we can continue that into the next round in two weeks’ time,” he continued.

Don’t forget to check back later this week for Tom Boardmans exclusive blog for BTCC Crazy.

Photo Credit: Pete Mainey (www.psmmotorsportimages.co.uk)

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.