Jack Goff came away with the joint Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship lead after a sterling maiden weekend with Triple Eight at Brands Hatch, telling TCF it shows “a statement of intent for 2015”.
The former Team HARD and BMR racer shone brightly on his Triple Eight debut in the MG6 GT, qualifying sixth on the grid as the team’s top driver before collecting a trio of fine results on Sunday, starting with fourth in race one and ninth in the second encounter despite a collision at Graham Hill Bend with Aron Smith in the latter.
Goff narrowly missed out on victory by less than half a second in race three having harassed the Honda Civic Type-R of Matt Neal all the way to the flag in a frenetic final race in Kent, the second place finish securing a joint series lead with Neal after three of 30 races.
“It was a great day and a good solid finish to it all as well”, Goff told The Checkered Flag after his podium celebrations.
“It wasn’t quite P1, but we put Matt under some pressure and it was almost enough.
“We’ve proved a point by coming away leading the championship. That’s the statement of intent – we just need to keep that going now for the rest of the season.”
Asked whether the form of the MG and Goff himself at Brands Hatch is a long-term omen for the 2015 season, the series leader added: “Definitely. The team was competitive everywhere they went last year.
“If you could call a bogey track I’d say it was Thruxton, but the team went there in pre-season and really improved the car, so I think we’ll be strong everywhere we go this season.”
MG in general appeared strong on the softer compound tyre in race one compared to their rivals as Goff sealed fourth place in that particular encounter, saying himself that it is a factor which has improved in winter testing.
“The only negative of the car from last year was the softer tyre, so it seems that we’ve improved that over the winter. We showed that in the first race, but I think we can sill even improve that.”
The drawback for the 2012 Renault UK Clio Cup champion is that he – along with Neal – will carry 75kg penalty ballast into Donington Park’s meeting in two weekends’ time for leading the series. He does however say that the flat-out approach will not change one bit.
“There’s pros and cons to everything really, isn’t there?” added Goff.
“To come away leading after the first weekend of the championship with MG and Triple Eight is brilliant, but at the same time, it means we’ve now got 75kg of ballast strapped in the passenger side coming into qualifying for Donington.
“It’s be fine though. We’ll go out and give it absolutely everything in qualifying, then I’m sure that we’ll be fighting at the sharp end.”