Tom Chilton endured a tough day at Oulton Park today, in the fourth event of the 2011 Dunlop British Touring Car Championship. The reining Independent Drivers’ Champion suffered several rare mechanical issues that hampered his progress, and saw him leave the Cheshire circuit with points for tenth and seventh places.

Tom's woes began before the first race of the weekend even got underway, when his brakes locked on whilst Tom was making his way to sixth place on the grid. With his Team Aon mechanics forced to push him off the grid, Tom was in the garage when his rivals started round 10 of the season. Following a quick repair, Tom was able to rejoin the race, but was still suffering from brake problems – as he raced on to 17th place.

Lining up 17th for race two, Tom fought hard in the changeable conditions, having made the gamble to start with wet rear tyres and slicks on the front. Tom did well to make up several places and was piling the pressure on Mat Jackson for ninth place in the final laps, despite having no electrics which also left him without windscreen wipers for the duration of the wet race. Tom couldn’t quite make a safe move on Jackson and at the chequered flag had managed to muscle his way through to 10th place and into the points.

Tom just missed out on the good fortunes of the reverse grid – which took place from ninth place and above, frustratingly putting Jackson on pole. From his tenth place grid slot, Tom endured a difficult start to the third and final race of the day. The Team Aon racer initially dropped down the order, but was soon back in the points.

At the mid way point, Tom found himself behind his team mate Andy Neate, but was losing time when changing gear which prevented him from challenging the car ahead. A suspected gear change problem will be investigated by Tom’s team after the race. Despite his issues, Tom finished in the points again, taking four points for seventh place.

Reflecting on his weekend, Tom said, “It’s been a really difficult weekend to be honest. I was worried about our pace in practice yesterday, but things seemed to come together in time for qualifying, even though I made a mistake on my fastest lap.

“We were in good shape today in the first race from sixth on the grid, but even on my way to the grid I knew there was something wrong with the car – I was full throttle but the car was barely moving. Even though I was able to joint the race a lap later, my brakes weren’t right.

“I quite enjoyed my fight back through the field in race two, and it was good to finish in the points. I was a little frustrated to miss out on the reverse grid pole, especially as I knew I was so much quicker than Mat [Jackson]. In the third race the car just felt a bit odd, I was losing out quite a lot to Andy when I was changing gear and then closing up so much on him under the brakes.

“I think this is probably a weekend to forget – we’ll take lessons from it but we know that we’re capable of better results than this. The focus now is on the next race at Croft and making the most of the updates that we will be taking there.”