Triple Eight Racing’s Jack Goff left Thruxton a frustrated man after a difficult third British Touring Car Championship round of the season at the Thruxton circuit.
After qualifying in seventh for the opening race of the weekend, late contact with West Surrey Racing’s Andy Piraulx dropped Goff to eighth on the final lap of the race.
Goff had managed to set the second best time during the race, which would have seen him start race two from the same position, but that time was disallowed with the MG man having exceeded track limits.
That only appeared to spur Goff on, however, as he charged from a revised tenth-place start to fourth in the second encounter, just half a second shy of Gordon Shedden in third, before ending the weekend with an 11th-place finish in race three.
But despite an encouraging drive through the field in race two, the 24 year-old admitted that the weekend had not played out as he might have hoped, having struggled to find an optimum setup for his car.
“It just didn’t really happen for us this weekend,” said Goff. “Race two was the highlight of the weekend for me. Coming from tenth to fourth made it palatable, but it was frustrating to lose my time for the race two start.
“Regarding our performances, we’ve had problems with both oversteer and understeer this weekend. There has been a general lack of grip all round really; there wasn’t much fight in the car in the third race at all and I did the best I could, but it wasn’t the result I wanted, or needed.”
Now sitting seventh in the drivers’ championship, Goff nevertheless believed that he and his team had made tangible progress throughout the weekend, while he also remained upbeat about his points’ scoring in the early rounds of the season.
“I think we’ve made improvements throughout the course of the weekend again,” he insisted. “We found something in FP2, but it’s still not perfect and we’ll need to keep chipping away. The time in race showed we’re getting there, so the pace is obviously in the car, we just haven’t had a chance to show it.
“Up until race three, every race I’ve finished had been in the top ten, which is pretty consistent. We had some damage in race one that held us back also, but it was okay. Tyres had been okay this weekend, but when the safety car went in they dropped off massively.”