Overnight changes lift Stewart Whyte to the top step

A raft of overnight setup changes for Stewart Whyte helped him make his way to the top step of the podium for the first time in 2015.

The Honda Accord driver had been the best of the rest in the first race as Patrick Watts cruised to victory, but the former BTCC driver was put through his paces in race two following a lot of overnight work helped the 2013 Super Touring champion park himself in the rear-view mirror of the Peugeot 406.

“I’m happy with that,” Whyte told TouringCarTimes. “We did a lot of work to get used to the tyres and to make it quicker from yesterday and it looks to have improved. We’re having to change a lot in the car to get it up to the pace that it’s usually at. We’re getting used to [the new Hoosier tyres] now, you just have to work through.”

Whyte was never more than a second behind Watts for the first 17 minutes of the race, finally making his move to the top in the last three minutes while Watts faded with a lack of fifth gear.

“I think if he had the pace, he said he lost fifth gear so he probably would have been right behind me anyway,” he continued. “I was pleased with the car, we changed so much to try and make the car harder and the car was totally different. I just took it easy in the first half just to make sure everything was alright and I wasn’t going to lose it anywhere stupid.

“Once the tyres came up to temperature and I got used to the changes we got quicker – we did our best lap three quarters of a way through, which you shouldn’t really do, you should do it in the first few laps.”

The series now moves on to Brands Hatch at the end of the month, a track where Whyte was very strong in 2014 and the Scot is quietly confident of a similar result.

“At Brands Hatch we were good last year but that was on the Dunlops, we’ll just have to take this setup there and see what we can do with it, but it should be good.”