Sam Tordoff said that he feels’pretty chilled’ about his championship situation, despite a tough qualifying session for the penultimate Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship meeting of the season at Silverstone.
The West Surrey Racing driver holds a slender five-point cushion over Honda’s Matt Neal in his bid to secure a maiden BTCC crown next month, but could only qualify 16th on the grid for Sunday’s opening race at Silverstone.
With six races remaining and his nearest rival Neal qualifying nine places ahead of him in seventh, Tordoff admitted that BMW were not pole position contenders with his 125i carrying 75kg of success ballast.
Tordoff told The Checkered Flag: “If it had been perfect then we would have been about two tenths quicker, but we certainly weren’t going to trouble the guys at the front.
“We’ve made loads of progress in a straight line at this track, but gone backwards a bit in everything else. The turbo engine is so strong here and we just couldn’t really compete with that.”
Tordoff had plenty of positives to take away from the session however, starting ahead of fellow championship contenders Mat Jackson (20th), Collard (24th) and Colin Turkington (31st).
“It’s not a disaster at all”, said Tordoff. “Mat Jackson’s behind me, Rob’s behind me and of course Colin’s starting from the back of the grid. We have to get race one out of the way, score some points and then get the weight off to start from race two.”
On his overall target for Sunday, Tordoff said: “30 points or so, but any more than that would be a good weekend.”
With the championship now entering the crucial stages, Tordoff admitted that he enters the final six races in a fairly relaxed state of mind.
“I’m pretty chilled out about it all to be honest. It will be what it will be”, said the Leeds racer, currently still only in his fourth season of BTCC.
“I keep saying that this is the best year I’ve had. We can still win the championship and, regardless of what happens, it will still be my best year. There’s a lot of life in me for the future.”
Championship Situation With Six Races To Go:
[table id=1500 /]