ENGINE damage put a major dampener on Chelsfield driver Shaun Hollamby’s appearance in the sixth round of the MSA British touring car championship at Silverstone.

His AmD Milltek Racing team arrived on a high following their best weekend of the season at Snetterton two weeks previously.

But any prospect of building upon that success was cruelly snatched away when engine damage sustained by the team’s Volkswagen Golf during Saturday’s qualifiers left the team with no option but to withdraw from Sunday’s races.

Hollamby had just set his fastest lap time of the day during Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session, half a second up on the morning’s free practice sessions, when an alternator belt broke and became entangled in the timing belt.

The resultant damage to the engine was too great to be repaired by the team in time for the Golf to take its place on the grid for Sunday’s races.

He said: “We just didn't have the spares that we needed to repair the damage at the circuit but we’ll regroup in time for the trip up to Scotland for Knockhill in two weeks time.”

With the Golf set up for Silverstone's fast straights, the team worked through Sunday to change the set-up to suit Knockhill's undulating, twisty circuit so they can turn their full attention to repairing the engine once the car is back at AmD’s base.

“Knockhill will be more suited to the Golf as outright power won’t be such an important factor there,” added Holamby.

“We had made revisions to the anti-roll bar for Silverstone and we will see the benefits of this at Knockhill, where we’ll be aiming to continue our push towards a top ten finish.

“We’re getting there and we're definitely starting to push ourselves towards the midfield.”