Simon Belcher has underlined a stronger qualifying performance and continued progress as the objective for Handy Motorsport as the British Touring Car Championship season marks its halfway stage at Croft this weekend [18th-19th June].
Oulton Park saw the teams worst showing of the season so far, with two-time race winner Rob Austin only able to claim a single point from the triple header in Cheshire amid mechanical issues and the BTCC’s usual helping of inconsistent luck.
Despite the setback, they head to the 2.13 mile Croft circuit in their best ever run of form, placed 16th overall in the Drivers standings with 39 points, 6 points behind Eurotech Racing’s Jeff Smith and 6 in front of Smith’s team-mate, Daniel Lloyd.
Qualifying has proved to be the achilles heel of Austin so far this campaign, with the Toyota Avensis just 0.7 seconds shy of pole-sitter Colin Turkington at Oulton Park, yet the Wiltshire-based outfit lined up just 19th in a 32 strong field.
Reflecting on the fourth meeting of the campaign, Belcher believes that a number of potential improvements to the Avensis package, which Speedworks’ Tom Ingram has shone in thus far this season, went unrealised at Oulton as a result of the teams misfortune.
“We made big steps forward with the car at Oulton which unfortunately didn’t show in the race results”, he commented.
“We had a mixture of mechanical problems and some bad luck, but the car was considerably better than at the first few events. I really do feel we’re on the verge of a bigger breakthrough.
“Oulton didn’t show the true pace, especially in qualifying, but Rob raced very well and on the Soft tyre in the last race he set his fastest lap on the last lap.”
Belcher believes this demonstrates the strength of the car and re-iterated his teams objectives as they make the journey north.
“It proved the car is working well and we’re hoping Croft will go smoothly. It’s a circuit where the rear-wheel drive cars will be strong but our aim is to still be in the top 10 in qualifying and to work from there.”
The three races get underway in Yorkshire on Sunday 19th June at 12:02, 14:32 and 17:09 respectively.