James Nash heads to Valencia for the second round of the 2012 World Touring Car Championship looking to score his first points of the season in the Team Aon Ford Focus.
Nash, the reigning British Touring Car Championship Independents’ Champion is in a confident frame of mind after the opening weekend of the season at Monza last time out, where he showed that the Ford Focus had reliability as both he and team-mate Tom Chilton finished both races and narrowly missed out on the top ten.
“The car though ran well considering that both it and the team are brand new to the WTCC this season,” said Nash, looking back at the Monza weekend.
“We had no data for Monza to guide us on car set-up unlike the other teams, which was bound to make a difference, but nevertheless, our pace particularly in the race morning warm-up when we ran comfortably inside the top 10 was very encouraging. We will have data for Valencia having tested there a few weeks ago so I’m confident that we’ll achieve our top 10 target in Spain.”
Nash wasn’t disappointed with how the Monza weekend went, despite missing out on the aim of a top ten finish in qualifying and the race, but his progress was hampered by a first corner accident, but he was amazed with the team getting him out for race two.
“While a top 10 grid and race finish was the aim before Monza, and will be again in Valencia, I couldn’t be too disappointed with our performance,” added Nash.
“We had the usual new car teething issues which you expect but what did set us back was destroying much of the front bodywork in race one when I got pushed into somebody else’s accident at the first corner.”
” The team only had a 10 minute window after the race and before race two to make repairs and it was quite frankly amazing that they managed to get me onto the grid for the second race.“
Between Monza and Valencia, Nash has been able to relax at home and also had a day with one of his personal sponsors, Laser Tools.
“It has been nice to be home for a couple of weeks. Before the first race at Monza I was away testing so it’s been great being able to catch up with family and friends.
“I’ve also had time to meet the guys at Laser Tools for a fun day at Rockingham Motor Speedway. Laser Tools are one of the team partners this season so it was great to meet them away from the pressures of a race weekend and be able to thank them for their support which is invaluable.”
Rounds three and four of the 2012 World Touring Car Championship will be live on Eurosport, with qualifying being shown at 16.10 Saturday, 31 March while Sunday, 1 April will see the warm up live on Eurosport 2 at 08.30, with race one from Valencia at 13.00 and race two at 16.00, both on Eurosport.