Sam Tordoff was pleased to end the 2014 British Touring Car Championship season with a hat-trick of top-four finishes, as he finished a campaign of varying fortunes in good form.
Having qualified just behind his teammate Jason Plato for Round 28 of the season, Tordoff overtook the pole-sitter into Paddock Hill bend, but after fending off championship leader Colin Turkington, eventually found himself having to let Plato through, with the double champion still harbouring slim hopes of claiming the title. Tordoff brought his car home to finish second, but Turkington was still able to wrap up the title thanks to his third place finish.
Nevertheless, the 1-2 finish, coupled with a double retirement for Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal and the later withdrawal of Neal from competition, meant that Tordoff’s MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save team were able to seal the manufacturers’ title, with their rivals Honda having won the crown in each of the previous four seasons.
Tordoff never saw the front of the field during the second race, but was classified in second place after a post-race penalty was awarded to his teammate, before rounding off his season with a strong drive to fourth in hazardous conditions at the Kent circuit.
And speaking to TouringCars.Net after the final race, the 25-year-old stated that he was pleased with his exploits, having played his part in securing the manufacturers’ title.
“I’m very happy with how things have worked out,” said Tordoff. “We came here and finished off on a high after some very bad luck at the previous rounds. I did the job that I had to do for MG so everyone’s happy that we won the manufacturers’ title, that was important for them, and obviously I helped Jason as much as I could in race one.
“Unfortunately, I think Colin was always going to win this one today – fair credit to him, he’s a deserving champion – so in the end, I’m very happy with how things went.”
Despite having to to relinquish the lead to his teammate after jumping him at the start of race one, Tordoff was nevertheless happy to have played his part for the team, although he insisted that he felt he had the pace to stay at the front.
“Yes, certainly,” affirmed Tordoff, when asked if he thought he could have won the race. “We had the conversation before the race; we knew the plan all along. Unless I was massively quicker than everyone else and was able to pull away, which I wasn’t, then I knew at some point I was going to relinquish the place and then protect Jason from Colin.
“That’s the difference between racing for yourself as an independent and racing for a manufacturer – I have to do what’s right by the team. I took one for the team in that respect and I think hopefully it will come back in my favour.”
And despite having been plagued by reliability problems throughout the season that he thought had held him back from showing his full potential, Tordoff felt that there was plenty of evidence to suggest he could challenge for the drivers’ championship in 2015.
“It’s a mixture of ups and downs. We’ve had a lot of raw pace, I think we’ve been very, very quick. We’ve been let down through car failures and probably lost the best part of 100 points this year, just in mechanical failures so it’s not lived up to my championship aspirations.
“But I can still take a lot from it, we’ve shown that we’ve got good pace, I just need it to all come together for me now and hopefully we can mount a good championship challenge in 2015.”