BMW title rivals focus on race day points

Colin Turkington and Andrew Jordan have both admitted that the focus for race day will be on banking points after the title rivals qualified outside the top ten for the latest rounds of the BTCC season at Thruxton.

The ballast-laden BMW pair had to settle for eleventh and 13th on the grid, despite lapping within half a second of the pace set by pole-sitter Sam Tordoff.

Turkington was the quicker of the pair in the #1 BMW and admitted that the weight had been a key factor in the result, with his focus now on trying to come through race one unscathed to bank as many points as possible from race day.

“Finding a good balance around here on maximum ballast is never easy, but we’re not a million miles away from where we were at our last visit here in May,” he said. “The big difference is that the other teams are all a lot closer now than they were then.

“From eleventh, the target is to bank as many points as I can in Race One, lose some of the weight in the car and make some up positions across the remaining two races. We’ll give it our best shot, whatever tomorrow throws at us.”

Jordan meanwhile will start directly behind his fellow West Surrey Racing man in 13th spot and said he would be adopting a similar approach to race day.

“My fastest lap was a bit scrappy, but okay,” he said. “I had a bit too much oversteer in the slow corners, and a bit too much understeer in the fast turns, and that’s largely down to carrying the success ballast.

“When you compare my pace to Colin’s, we have the two heaviest cars with success ballast, we’re both rear-wheel-drive at a circuit that favours front-wheel-drive, and we’re more or less identical on time, so that’s just where we are right now. Scoring points remains the key at this stage of the season. We just have to maximise every opportunity tomorrow.”