Polesitter Colin Turkington admits that a recent test at Mallory Park has helped his eBay Motors team, as the Northern Irishman took his first pole position since Croft 2009.
“The pace has been steadily improving,” said Turkington to TouringCars.Net. “I was third in free practice one this morning with what I felt was a difficult car so I knew if we could improve the balance there is more performance there. It’s been a good track for the BMWs.
“We’ve made small improvements. I didn’t have any new tyres this morning so once we put a fresh set of tyres on it hooked up and I was able to produce the lap.”
Turkington, who is sixth in the championship standings, admits that he needs a strong performance this weekend if his championship challenge is to remain on course. The Northern Irishman is currently fifty points adrift of leader Matt Neal. He hopes that a double podium last time out at Oulton Park is the start of a return to form for his WSR team.
“I had a good score at Oulton and now would be the time [to get the championship challenge on track],” added Turkington. “You can only do your best. Hopefully we’ll have a good car in the race and take what comes, really.”
WSR recently conducted a short test at Mallory Park to further develop their new NGTC BMW 1 series, with Turkington admitting that further steady progress has been made.
“We’ve had limited testing – we had a good test after Oulton Park with a short session at Mallory Park, which improved the car a little bit. We’re making progress from day one.”