AMD Milltek Racing driver Tom Onslow-Cole believes that he can challenge for three strong points finishes at Oulton Park this weekend – and he hasn’t ruled out the chance of the team taking its maiden podium at the Cheshire circuit.
“I think we have a good all round package now and are making good progress with the car,” said Onslow-Cole. “Oulton Park is circuit where you need a good chassis and strong brakes. We know the Golf has a strong chassis and we are making some improvements to the brakes, which hopefully we will benefit from this weekend.
“The rule changes for the S2000 [engined] cars mean it will be tougher to get into the top ten and stay in the top ten, but I believe we can come away from Oulton Park with three points finishes. To be honest, without the failure we had before race two, we would have done it at Thruxton. That is the aim going into the weekend and I’ll be chuffed if we can come away from Oulton Park with a hat-trick of top six or top eight finishes.
“Our ultimate goal this year is to get the Golf onto the podium and if we could get a reverse grid this weekend and bring home a top three finish then it would be fantastic and a real milestone for the team.”
The Thurrock-based team have already been enjoying their most successful season in the BTCC and have taken three points finishes out of the past six races. To further development of the Golf, AmD are bringing a new front bumper to the undulating Oulton Park to improve the aerodynamics and air intake to the engine.
Team Principal Shaun Hollamby admitted that the new bumper has been brought in to improve the speed issues the team have been having due to the shape of the Golf being not as aerodynamic as some other chassis on the grid.
“We have good balance with the car and even though we still lack some straight line speed due to the shape of the car, we are continually working on improvements,” said Hollamby. “This weekend, we’ll introduce a new look front bumper, which should be better aerodynamically and also features better air intakes for the engine, so it will be interesting to see how it performs on track.
“Without the issue we had at Thruxton, we’d have scored three top tens so that has to be our target for this weekend. Thruxton was the meeting where I feel we really gelled as a team and got the best out of the car so we’ve got to build on it when we get to Oulton Park and work hard to give Tom a car that will allow him to score more points.”