Photo: PSP Images

Chilton delighted with final race victory

By

Tom Chilton took his second win of the year in the new Ford Focus of Arena International Motorsport to close off the first year of development of the new car, and is looking ahead to next season when the team may move over to the World Touring Car Championship.

Starting from second on the grid between the two Chevrolet Cruzes of Alex MacDowall & Jason Plato, Chilton nipped ahead at the start to take the lead and hold on for his second race victory of the season, his first since Knockhill at the beginning of September.

“Myself, Tom Onslow-Cole and Andy Neate, we all say, to drive now the car feels mega. It really is a great car to drive, it does everything you want it to do,” said Chilton to TouringCarTimes.

“To win the last race of the year is fantastic, as I’ve got a nice big break now where I can think about ‘yes, I won the last race’. It’s not been easy. Last year, it was actually that car’s second year of development. I was on my own developing that throughout most of the first year, (in the) second year we already knew what we were doing, and also the gas turbo back in 2010 was a great idea and it was inside the regulations and we used that and it worked to our advantage.”

“This year we’ve done everything to the rules, and been pegged back some more the same as Dynamics, but we’ve done everything we’re allowed to do and I’m very proud of everyone here at the team who’ve worked very hard, and to win the last race is great.”

Arena are hoping to step up to the world stage next year with the World Touring Car Championship, which if it happens will see the Ford marque in the Championship for the first time since the first two generations of Ford Focus were run by Hotfiel Sport & RS-Line Racing in 2005.

“The plan is to go and do the World Touring Car Championship next year, and say there’s six things we have to have in place to do that, we’ve only got four of them in place at the moment,” said Chilton. “But it’s all going in the right direction. We need to have support from Ford and a couple of others to actually say we’re definitely doing it.”

“I feel as a driver, I feel that I need to progress to the World Touring Cars, the British is great, I’ve been in it 10 years, loved every minute of it but now I feel I need to progress as a driver and as a team we should be doing the Worlds.”