Colin Turkington pleased with “good gains” from new BMW

Colin Turkington said he felt West Surrey Racing had made “good gains” with the new BMW 330i M Sport after qualifying third on the grid in mixed conditions at Brands Hatch.

The opening qualifying session of the BTCC season marked the first time that the car had run in wet conditions, meaning a step into the unknown for the defending champions.

Despite that, the car was able to replicate the page it had shown in practice, with Turkington finishing up just ahead of Andrew Jordan and Tom Oliphant on the times as the WSR trio locked out places three to five on the grid.

“That was really tricky, especially having never driven the new BMW 330i M Sport in the wet,” he said. “We used each run to understand more about the car and we improved it each time. Now I feel that I have a car that I know. The first step with a new car is to get it to a place where you can be confident and trust it, which I do, so we just have to carry on building layers of competitiveness on to it. We have already made some good gains.

“The guys have obviously built a very good car straight out of the box and it very pleasing to be at the sharp end of the grid straight away. As we learn how to tune the car we will only get faster. This morning we had no idea where we would be in the pack, so I think we can all be a bit happier tonight that we have a fast race car with the potential for loads more.”