Airwaves Racing boss David Bartrum was delighted with his squad’s uplifting performances during the latest BTCC visit at Snetterton, the team claiming their first silverware of 2013 thanks to podium finishes in races two and three of the weekend.
The Kent-based outfit had by far their best weekend of what had been a trying first half to their 2013 campaign, but the team came out fighting after the summer break to notch up both their best qualifying and their best race results of the season, leaving all those involved with plenty to smile about.
Aron Smith qualified a season’s best sixth on the grid, before going on to reach the third step of the podium on two occassions in Sunday’s latter races, while Mat Jackson secured the team’s best result of the year as he crossed the line runner-up to race three winner Gordon Shedden in the final encounter of the day.
The team also collected the HiQ Teams trophy for scoring the most points over the weekend in Norfolk, an achievement that marked the team’s return to the front of the BTCC field and left Bartrum praising his squad’s effort.
“Happy birthday to the Motorbase Performance NGTC!” said a delighted Bartrum, the team’s personally-built NGTC Focus having first made its debut at Snetterton last year.
“It was a year ago today that we brought the Focus here and started out on our journey of development, and obviously to come back this weekend after the break to get such a good result and the team’s trophy means a lot to me.
Airwaves were team of the Snetterton weekend (Photo credit: PSP Images)
“Any podium is special, but having had a bit of a drought in the first part of the season, to then get that many podiums and the teams’ trophy is pretty special – you don’t get many independent teams win the team’s trophy. It just shows the work that goes into a weekend and it’s a testament to the team and how hard everyone’s worked and what a good job the drivers have done this weekend again; so I’m one very, very happy team boss.”
Bartrum now feels that the team can put the difficult first half of the season behind them, and continue focusing on picking up further rostrums with four events remaining.
“The first half of the season wasn’t great, and our aim now is to score as many points as we can for the second half and to get as many podiums as we can, and just get the good name of Airwaves Racing out there.”
