Mat Jackson said he used the advantage of the softer tyres to full effect to win the second Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Snetterton.
On a weekend that saw Motorbase Performance clock up their 300th BTCC race start, Jackson twice had to climb from third to first on the opening lap, after a multi-car accident on the Bentley Straight saw the race red flagged initially.
Overtaking Gordon Shedden when the lights went out on the restart, the Ford Focus ST slipped inside Colin Turkington heading into Hamiltons to grab a lead he ultimately wouldn’t lose, clinching a third win of the season.
“So far, so good. Maybe we should send the boss away more often!” joked Jackson when speaking to The Checkered Flag afterwards.
“The first start was obviously good to get into the lead. But with the red flag, it was obviously a bit frustrating. To do it again on the restart was pretty sweet. The car was awesome and worked really, really strong.
“You never really know where you’re going to end up. The boys made some tweaks to the car to make it handle the soft tyre – it worked!”
Jackson pointed towards his pace on the softer tyres as key to success, admitting that better grip helped him in his battle with the Subaru Levorg of Turkington also.
“It’s difficult when you’ve shown your hand already”, said Jackson on his pair of opening lap battles with Turkington.
“The soft tyre played an important role in that because we got the traction off the corner and felt more grip early on. I knew that we had to capitalise on it and it worked.
“You’ve just got to manage them and don’t take too much out of them. You never know what Colin’s got or whether here’s just playing about.”
