Rob Collard said that his involvement in a lap two incident hampered him on his way to finishing 12th in the opening Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race of the final day at Brands Hatch GP.
The West Surrey Racing driver started 12th on the grid for the first of three title-deciding races in Kent, a position he also finished after suffering damage in a lap two incident involving Hunter Abbott and Matt Neal at Druids.
Collard enters the second race of the day 19 points adrift of WSR team-mate, Sam Tordoff, but remained relieved to have emerged still within striking distance after the early skirmishes of race one.
“In the start of that race we got knocked around a bit”, Collard told The Checkered Flag after the opening race of the day.
“Matt Neal spun Abbott around at Druids – that left me with nowhere to go but around the outside. Unfortunately I tagged the rear of Abbott’s car and bent my steering.
“I soldiered on but it was carnage for a few laps. We’ve finished P12 though, so we’ve got a few points and we’re still in the hunt.”
Collard expects WSR’s luck to change in the second BTCC encounter of the day at 14:22, starting two spots behind his team-mate with zero additional ballast in his BMW 125i.
“It’s all to play for, but we’re looking strong”, Collard said ahead of race two, for which he will wear a new set of standard Dunlop tyres that he hopes will help against his soft tyre-shod rivals.
“We’re definitely still in the hunt. We’ve got the weight out of the car and a brand new set of tyres from qualifying yesterday because we didn’t get to use them.”