Rob Collard hopes to claw back points on West Surrey Racing team-mate, Sam Tordoff, who starts the final Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race at Rockingham on the harder compound tyre.
Following electrical problems for all three WSR BMW 125i machines in Saturday’s sodden qualifying session, Collard found himself 26th on the grid for the day’s opening race, a place ahead of team-mate Tordoff.
While Tordoff charged to 10th place in race one and victory in the second encounter in Corby, Collard took finishes of 14th and third having opted to run with the harder Dunlop tyre compound in the opening race.
“It was a fantastic race for the team”, Collard told The Checkered Flag after the team secured a double podium in the second race.
“After such a shocking day yesterday, to come back and deliver that for the team with a doube podium was more than what we thought we could do.”
Tordoff’s win puts him 18 points clear in the Drivers’ Championship, 41 points ahead of fifth-placed Collard, who added: “It was great that Sam got a win. Obviously, it means he extends the points gap to me, but I’m still in the fight.”
The tyre choices from earlier in the day mean that Tordoff now starts race three on the harder tyre, something that Collard believes gives him the chance to make big gains into his team-mate’s championship advantage from fifth on the grid.
“Anything can happen”, said Collard, who starts the final race on the medium compound tyre that has appeared the quicker option all day.
“[Sam]’s got the hard tyre for race three and I’ve got the more conventional option, so hopefully I can now go and take some points out of him this time.
“You would have thought I would have been fine from the front row at Knockhill – look what happened there. It’s now just a matter of talking to the engineers and trying to find a little bit more pace because I was losing the rear tyres a bit at the end of that race.”
