Kody Garland has been left to rue another promising weekend gone begging, after continued issues with his Peugeot 308 TCR at round four of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia.
Garland ended Friday practice as the seventh fastest driver, only a few hundredths behind his Garry Rogers Motorsport teammate Ben Bargwanna and ahead of fellow stablemates Aaron Cameron and Jordan Cox.
Come qualifying on Saturday the Peugeot 308 was again handling mysteriously, a trait that has plagued the first three rounds of Garland’s season, and Garland could only wrangle the Valvoline and Motor Traders’ Association of New South Wales car to 11th on the grid for race one. With three laps to go in the opening race Garland had improved to eighth and was pressuring both Cameron and Bargwanna in front before his power steering failed. Despite the issues, Garland limped home in eighth place to secure a third place start in the reverse top 10 grid for race two.
Unfortunately in the second race, the power steering intermittently failed throughout the 21 laps, and a trip through the pit lane to try and reset the issues didn’t work. The weekend’s final race played out similarly, with Garland losing the power steering on the lap to the grid. The issue came and went throughout the race, before the driveshaft failed with three laps to go.
“It’s just incredibly frustrating, I can’t do anything differently and the crew have worked tirelessly to try and fix it, but we are still having issues,” said Garland.
“I drove the Renault last year, which had a lot of mechanical problems that ruined the season for me, but it handled well. I’ve driven the Alfa Romeo on a couple of occasions and found good handling with that car too. For some reason our particular Peugeot either has an extremely small setup window, or an underlying problem.
“The team have looked over the car, nothing has been found, so it’s a bit of a mystery at this point. This weekend just capped off the year we’ve had so far, with the same power steering issue coming up in all three races and the driveshaft exploding just to really rub the salt in the wound.
“I know the boys working on the car are as frustrated as I am, and they’re not doing anything wrong, it’s just one of those things. I’m really excited for the World Tour events, so I hope Sandown proves to be a breakthrough for us,” concluded Garland.
The next round of Supercheap Auto TCR Australia takes place at Sandown Raceway from September 8-10, but Garland will hit the track again later this week for his second round in S5000 at The Bend Motorsport Park.