Adam Morgan was overwhelmed to have claimed a ‘mad’ first victory in the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch, following a penalty for Jason Plato in Sunday’s second race.
Having qualified in fifth for the first race of the day, the Lancastrian continued his strong form as he avoided a pile-up at Paddock Hill bend on the opening lap to retain his starting position to the flag.
But the second race of the day saw Morgan produce his best performance of the season, as he first outfoxed Plato on the exit of Paddock Hill, before overtaking Rob Collard to lead the event. A mistake later on in the lap meant that Plato was able to take the lead and canter to victory, but a second place still represented a first podium of the season for Morgan.
News then broke shortly before the start of the final race that Plato had been handed a 20-second penalty for contact with champion Colin Turkington – with his West Surrey Racing team appealing the stewards’ initial decision to award the MG driver a grid penalty – which handed Morgan the victory, ahead of Sam Tordoff and Collard.
Morgan’s victory brought another landmark as it was, surprisingly, the first for a Mercedes in the series, and speaking to TouringCars.Net at the end of the weekend, the 25-year-old admitted that despite the circumstances surrounding the victory, it was still a remarkable result.
“It’s mad,” exclaimed Morgan. “It’s my third year racing in British Touring Cars now, I’ve had a podium before but a race win is a race win. It’s a shame what happened, that I didn’t claim the outright win, but we had the pace in the car all race so I knew I could do it – it’s just amazing news for everyone.”
The outright victory could well have been Morgan’s had he not run wide at Westfield with three laps remaining, but he insisted that despite seeing victory slip from his clutches at the time, it was important for him to remain calm.
“As soon as I’d gathered my thoughts and got the car safely back on track again I had to calm myself down, recompose myself and say ‘right, second’s still a great result, it’s still a podium’ and get my head down and get to the end of the race.”
A strong weekend at Brands yielded 37 points for the WIX Racing driver – enough to lift him into tenth in the overall championship at the expense of Alain Menu – and that haul, when compared with the rest of the season, was enough for Morgan to declare that his aspirations ahead of the 2014 season had been fulfilled.
“To bring a brand new car into the championship, there are always teething problems and there are masses of data collection that you need and development work, but the car’s just come on race by race and the lads at WIX have done a great job so it’s [the win] a massive achievement for everyone, we’ve definitely exceeded our expectations.”
And off the back of the result, Morgan confirmed his and his team’s plans to run a second car in 2015, having already acquired another Mercedes and with interest surrounding a potential second seat.
“Yes, we’re planning on running another A-Class, we have one in the workshop at home with a cage in it so it’s ready to have parts strapped to it, to be built up and raced – all we need is a licence and a driver.
“It would be great to have two cars out and we’re trying our best to get that happen.”