Colin Turkington claims that he is not thinking about the British Touring Car Championship title yet, despite taking a huge step towards the trophy with another two wins at Rockingham.
Victory in race one and two at Rockingham takes the Northern Irishman’s win total for the season to eight and moves him a comfortable 55 points clear at the top of the championship. Despite a lead of two-and-a-half wins and only six races left, Turkington insists he is not yet thinking about taking the title.
“It’s always good to have points in the bank but we’ve still got a lot of racing to do yet,” said Turkington to TouringCars.Net. “I know how quickly things can flip around. It’s not even going to be in my mind – my focus is on just trying to perform well at Silverstone and score well.”
The 2009 champion added that he was surprised with the lack of a fight from the MG drivers at a circuit where they were expected to win.
“They definitely had the fastest car over one lap,” added Turkington. “But we engineered a really good car over 16 laps. “I’m surprised that we were able to perform like that today, but the races just went that way.
“I got a breather at the start and then I was able to go from there. There are no easy races – as I keep saying it’s not by chance that we are where we are and we’re working hard at it.”
In the final race of the day many expected Turkington to challenge for the rarest of BTCC achievements – three wins out of three. However he admits that his car didn’t perform as strongly on the soft option tyre as expected and was unable to mount a challenge at the front.
“You go on to the soft tyre and the car is different,” explained Turkington. “I did my best but the car wasn’t probably as strong on the soft as it was on the standard tyres. When you don’t have the speed you can’t pass so I did my best in that race.
“It would be very special but I just know the importance of scoring points. Wins are absolutely awesome, the feeling is like no other, but I have to be clever as well.”
The 32 year-old remains cautious heading to Silverstone in two weeks, however, given that the MGs are expected to be even stronger at the Northamptonshire circuit.
“That’s why we can’t afford to change the approach or work any less hard – we know we’re going to have to graft at Silverstone to get the results so we’ll just go as hard as we can and keep the same mentality.
“I’m definitely not [thinking about the title]. There’s so much competition out there and things can change in a moment so I’m prepared to go to round 30 of 30 – I can’t remember the last time it hasn’t.”