03/6/2003

The rebuild of Rob Collard's Vauxhall Astra is on course to be complete in time for the Hampshire ace to be in British Touring Car Championship action this weekend at Silverstone. With the chassis repaired by Triple Eight Race Engineering, it has now been sprayed and is back in the Collard Racing workshops - where Rob's dedicated team are working flat out on building up an entire race car.

"Everything is going well," says Rob. "We picked up the car from the paint shop at 7.30 this morning, and once it was back in the workshop the guys were working flat out on changing it from a bare chassis to a race car. I'm up at Triple Eight this afternoon picking up more bits myself, lots of things, including new seat-mounting brackets.

"Unfortunately we are going to have to run with a 2001-specification engine. My engine doesn't arrive back in the country until Saturday morning, so we won't have time to fit it. We are going to be treating Free Practice at Silverstone as a shakedown on the car.

"Eight guys are working on getting the Astra back together, and I'm 100% definite that we will be on the grid at Silverstone."