Ash Hand is hoping to use the momentum from a ‘special’ double victory at Thruxton in the next few meetings of the season and taste more success in the Renault UK Clio Cup.
Hand dominated proceedings in Hampshire, making it three wins in the last four races following his maiden Clio success at Donington Park last time out to move up to third place in the championship standings.
“We’ve had a great weekend, it’s been perfect with two pole positions, two race wins and two fastest laps – it doesn’t get any better than that,” a delighted Hand told TCF.
“It feels special. It gives you a lot of confidence going forwards into the next couple of rounds, you’re going to have your tail wagging.”
After breaking clear for victory in the opening race, it proved to be a much closer affair in race two with his Team Pyro stablemate Ashley Sutton pushing him all the way to the flag.
Hand and Sutton were the class of the field at Thruxton, locking out the top two spots across qualifying and the races, as well as in pre-event testing last month, and Hand feels lots of hard work in pre-season gave them the edge at the unique circuit.
“The team have done a great job. We did a lot of work pre-season as a team on Thruxton, so when we came here testing we were fast and we’ve carried that into the race weekend,” he explained.
“We had some understeer like everyone on the grid did, but the car’s been right under you, you’ve felt like you could drive it hard, it’s not going to give up, it’s been great.”
With some a dominant weekend under his belt, Hand’s confidence is high and the 21 year old admits he’s going to Oulton Park in four weeks’ time with a repeat performance the goal.
“Two wins, that’s what we’re going there for,” he firmly stated. “After this weekend we don’t want to settle for second, so at Oulton we want two more wins, pole positions and fastest laps.”
