Ciceley Racing’s Adan Morgan, who was sixth and eighth in Saturday’s two practice sessions, is anticipating ‘significant’ tyre wear during Sunday’s three BTCC races.
With temperatures at Donington Park this weekend much warmer than at both the pre-season media day and the opening round of the season at Brands Hatch, drivers are already expecting that tyre wear with the new softer-compound Dunlop tyre will be more of an issue in Sunday’s races.
“You have to plan which race you use your tyres in based on how you think you’ll do in qualifying,” explained Morgan. “If that doesn’t work then your strategy’s not going to go how you want. It’s very different this time [compared to the media day] because it’s a lot warmer. It’s absolutely roasting, so the tyre degradation could be much more significant throughout the races.
Morgan finished the first practice session as the top Toyota driver in sixth, and was the third-quickest Avensis driver in the second practice session behind Dave Newsham and Frank Wrathall. During both sessions the team were making constant changes to Morgan’s car – and he added that further adjustments will be needed during qualifying.
“We made some significant changes in both sessions and we’re still making some more changes for qualifying. Hopefully we’ll extract some more time out of the car. We’ve not had a run on the new tyres yet so hopefully there will be more time to gained.
“We’ve got a little bit of data from the media day for race strategy and how the tyres will last. It’s been about analysing the data and picking the best set-up really.”
Morgan is aiming to go even better in qualifying when he will use the softer tyres for the first time this weekend.
“I think I’m being optimistc but I’m looking for a top six really. We’ve got to put new tyres and so there’s a lot of changes still to make.”
Qualifying takes place at 15:40 GMT and is broadcast online at www.itv.com/btcc.