Ollie Jackson secured a brace of points finishes at his home circuit of Snetterton as the 2012 British Touring Car Championship resumed after its summer break.
Despite the brace of top 15 finishes, Jackson was disappointed with how the weekend went overall as he had hoped for more from the weekend.
“We’ve scored some more points but it’s been a bit of a disappointing weekend if I’m being honest as we hoped for more,” Ollie said. “The work we have done to the car has really improved the handling and the stability and the balance is much better, but we have struggled for straight-line speed,” said Jackson of his weekend.
Having qualified 18th fastest for round 16, Jackson was forced to retire the #48 AmDTuning.com Volkswagen Golf after 11 laps due to a driveshaft failure.
He bounced back from 20th on the grid in the second race to secure the final point for 15th and went one better in the final race as he finished 14th overall.
“If you look at the speedtraps, the S2000-based cars are all at the top but then struggle to match the NGTC cars in the corner, but we’re in amongst the NGTC cars in the speedtraps, which we need to improve. Snetterton is a circuit where straight-line speed is important so it made it tough,” continued Jackson.
“Although we have things we need to work on, there are still positives that we can take away from the weekend and we have a good platform to work with through the remainder of the season to try and pick up some strong results,” concluded Jackson, who finds himself 18th in the drivers’ Championship.
The Snetterton disappointment has made Shaun Hollamby and the team more determined to bounce back from the weekend and if they have to miss the trip to Knockhill to do this then they will.
“A disappointing weekend,” he admitted. “We were slower than pre-season testing despite having more power, a considerable investment in suspension development and Ollie obviously being more experienced with the car since he first drove it back in March.
“It’s time for us to re-group and get to the bottom of why we are slower than in pre-season testing, and if this means sacrificing going to Knockhill to test instead, then that is a decision we will make.”