After enjoying arguably the best Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship weekend of his career at Croft, Sam Tordoff told TCF that West Surrey Racing should now not be counted out of the championship hunt.
The Leeds racer claimed pole position on Saturday for the first time since joining the WSR squad for the 2015 season, continuing on from his race-winning performance at Oulton Park.
Despite a mistake costing him victory in race one to team-mate Andy Priaulx, a second success of his season came in race two by over two seconds after leading from lights-to-flag, before rounding off the weekend in North Yorkshire with a sixth place finish.
The dominant weekend for BMW and WSR propelled Tordoff up to fourth place in the championship, now just 33 points adrift of series leader, Gordon Shedden.
“We’ve done exactly what I hoped and took full advantage of the opportunity”, Tordoff told The Checkered Flag afterwards.
“It gave us a really strong haul of points today. We’re right back in it and I’m up to fourth, which I never expected before the weekend at all.”
Photo: btcc.net
The performance of the BMW 125i on the softer compound tyres in race three – also coupled with the maximum 75kg of success ballast – left Tordoff equally buoyed by the performance gains of the WSR squad at Croft.
He added: “With the weight and the soft tyres it couldn’t have been tougher, but that was definitely my best result on the soft tyres.
“In comparison to plenty of the others, we’re feeling really good on the soft tyres with weight on board.”
The visit to Croft was one that rival teams expected would suit BMW machinery, although Tordoff says that he and team-mates Priaulx and Rob Collard can begin to stir up the championship fight.
“There’s still a lot of BMW-friendly circuits coming up, so I wouldn’t count us out of the championship yet!”
