Adam Morgan maintained his strong 2013 form during the BTCC’s latest round at Snetterton, claiming three top-seven finishes to comfort his seventh place in the championship.
The Ciceley Racing man put behind him his Croft accidents with a strong weekend in the sixth round of the series at the Norfolk circuit, fighting for the podium later on the Sunday afternoon in a weekend that saw him a consistent top-10 contender throughout.
A year on from his best qualifying performance in BTCC at the 300 circuit, Morgan qualified seventh on Saturday afternoon before going on the match that result in the following day’s opening race, keeping Airwaves Racing‘s Aron Smith honest throughout the 12-lap encounter.
“I made a bit of a bosh of the start,” said Morgan after race one. “Luckily no-one got past me, and then I just got my head down and caught up with the group in front. I was catching Aron towards the end but by then my front left tyre was past its best, so instead of risking it I opted to bring the Toyota home seventh. I’m quite happy with that.”
Race two saw Morgan improve despite suffering damage as he survived a wild excursion through the grass exiting the long Riches corner early in the race, just escaping a tangle ahead of him between Jeff Smith and Rob Austin with steering injuries to his Avensis before recovering to the back of a train of eight cars battling for the race lead.
Problems and incident ahead in that pack promoted Morgan through the field to an eventual fifth position, the Cicelely Racing man saying: “That was probably one of the most difficult races I’ve ever had to do. I went off and got hit, and my steering was completely knocked askew.
“The car was a bit of a handful: we made some set-up changes which upset the balance and the rear end was a bit loose. It was itching to break free for a lot of the race!”
The final race saw Morgan’s best result of the weekend come his way as he fought for a podium position with the Ford once again of Smith for much of the race. Morgan eventually had to focus his attention on defending fourth place from the charging MG of Sam Tordoff in the dying laps of the race, clinging on successfully to a fourth place finish.
Happy with his outing, Morgan added: “I was pushing really hard to try to find a way ahead of Aron because I could see Sam was coming behind, but there was no way to get through and then I had to focus on defending my position. There was a bit of contact between us all but it was just hard, fair racing that I really enjoyed.”
The trio of top seven results topped off another strong weekend for Morgan, making up for a rough outing at Croft last time out as the former Ginetta GT Supercup champion lies a comfortable seventh in the championship after Snetterton, and third in the Independents title chase.
“It’s turned out to be a mega weekend and if you’d offered me a seventh, a fifth and a fourth at the start of the week, I’d definitely have taken it. To be honest, I had a poor start in each of the three races and lost out, but I battled back and the car was strong all day.
“After the disappointing way that the first half of the season came to an end with the accident at Croft, it was nice to come here and run strongly at the front again as we did earlier in the year. The team has done a great job and we’ve been able to strengthen our position in the Independents championship, which is a good boost going into the next round.”
