The Motorbase Performance run Airwaves Racing saw an improvement in form during rounds 10, 11 and 12 of the 2013 British Touring Car Championship despite results not matching the progress.
Mat Jackson and Aron Smith both secured a top ten finish while Liam Griffin secured his fourth Jack Sears Trophy victory in the Addison Lee Motorbase S2000 Ford Focus.
32 Year Old Jackson secured a 7th place finish in the opening race of the day having lined up 11th and this proved to be the highlight of the day for Jackson.
Whilst challenging for a top five finish in the second race, he had contact with Sam Tordoff’s MG and this damaged the #7 Ford Focus and he dropped down the order to 20th and he finished the weekend with a 19th place finish after an unscheduled pit stop due to issues like the issues caused from the contact in race 2.
“We’ve really made progress with the car this weekend,” said Jackson. “I think we would have had three top five finishes this weekend, but performance wise we had a few issues that cost us that, which is a real shame but we’re still learning.
“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel now and we’re moving in the right direction – we’re challenging the Honda’s and faster than the Toyota’s and I feel comfortable with the direction that we’re heading in.”
Team-mate Smith lined up 17th for the opening race after engine issues in qualifying and the fault returned during the opening race which led to his retirement.
He started race 2 from the back of the grid after an engine change and he brought the #8 Ford Focus home 14th, making up 11 positions in the process. He continued his forward momentum in the final race and secured the second top ten finish of the day for the team.
“It’s been a little bit of a troubling weekend; and it’s unfortunate because we’ve done so much testing and developed the car so much from where we were – but we just never got to show our hand to be fair,” the Irishman added.
“We had engine issues in qualifying on Saturday which affected us in race 1 and forced the retirement. I’ve never seen a team work so hard to change an engine between races; because it’s one of those things that you don’t even make it out at all and even though we had to start at the back, we still made it to the grid, which was impressive.”
“Now we have a much clearer direction going into the next round which is really positive. Hopefully Croft will be a turning point for us,” he concluded.
Griffin secured his fourth Jack Sears Trophy victory of the season in the final race and was stripped of his fifth after an incident in race one which saw him given a 1 second time penalty.
Heading to Croft, Griffin is just one win off the top of the standings.
“All in all I’m pretty happy with the weekend,” said Griffin. “Race 1 was a bit disappointing with the result being reversed, but the ying and yang came through with us getting another win in race 3.
“Overall the weekend was a fair result; Lea Wood had the pace- but to come away with one of the trophies from the weekend is a good result for us and a good sign for the championship,” the Addison Lee Motorbase driver concluded.