AmD Tuning’s Dave Newsham is confident that he will be able to break into the top ten for a second time this season as his team head to the second round of the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park.
Newsham goes into the event 17th in the standings, having scored a solid ninth-placed finish in the third race of the season after narrowly missing out on points in the first two.
The 46-year-old felt that the team were only able to get the best from his Ford Focus in the third race of the day at Brands Hatch last month, but believes they have a better starting point for this weekend after analysing their set-up.
“Brands Hatch was a bit of a trying weekend in a way because we struggled with understeer in the first two races and it was only in race three that we really got the balance sorted and could give an idea of what we can do,” said the Inverness-based racer. “We’re going back to a tried and tested set-up for this weekend at Donington which should give us better balance from the outset, and that will hopefully allow us to hit the ground running.
“Donington is a circuit that has never been kind to me in the past, even in my Clio Cup winning season, but I hope that that can change this weekend. The main aim is to make sure we pick up three finishes and hopefully if we can start the weekend the way we ended things at Brands Hatch, we’ll be pushing into the top ten again.
“Although we tested at Donington Park on the Media Day, we had a brake issue that meant we didn’t get chance to chase a time before it started to rain. We didn’t show our hand in the dry as a result, but at least we know we’ll have a good car if it turns out to be wet this weekend!”
Team Boss Shaun Hollmaby was similarly optimistic of moving forward in the series, as the West-Thurrock based squad looks to build on a decent start to the season.
“While it would have been nice to get a few more points on the board at Brands Hatch, we were able to learn a lot over the course of the weekend that will benefit us moving forwards,” said Hollamby. “Dave did a great job behind the wheel and the whole team worked well together to resolve some of the problems we had, and it allowed us to take our first top ten finish of the year.
“As a team, we have some good memories of Donington Park from our time running the old VW Golf and the aim is to make sure that we come away from the weekend this time around having added to those memories. The first thing is to try and bring home three points finishes, with the ultimate goal being to make sure they are all in the top ten.”