Rob Collard has admitted that breaking into the top ten in qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park may prove to be challenging due to having to carry maximum success ballast heading into race one.
As a result of being the joint championship leader along with Honda’s Matt Neal, Collard must carry the maximum amount of ballast heading into qualifying and race one.
That has left the WSR driver struggling for pace in practice, with a wheel problem in first practice curtailing his running and leaving him down in 18th. Second practice saw Collard improve slightly, going 15th fastest on old tyres.
“We had a little bit of a technical issue in free practice one and I only got one flying lap, so we’re on the back foot at the moment,” said Collard to TouringCars.Net. “We went out and tried something different in free practice two. On old tyres it was quite good actually, we were there or thereabouts and only a tenth off Sam [Tordoff], which considering the weight I’m carrying I’m quite happy with.
“I don’t think we’ve got the sort of time to match the front running guys, especially Sam and Jack [Goff], because the weight is probably half a second around here compared to what they’ve got.”
Collard added that he was targeting a top ten grid position for race one, but remained pragmatic when considering his chances for the opening race.
“From my experience I’ve never been a particularly strong qualifier, because I always seem to set the car up more for durability and for how I like to drive it, rather than a pure lap time. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have very good race pace for Saturday.
“I’d be delighted to be in the top ten in qualifying, but I think realistically we’ll probably be 12th to 14th. The aim is to then try and get into the top eight in all three races, or even a fifth or sixth, I think that would be quite a good result here. It’s about getting points, and if we can sneak in and get a nice reversed grid you never know.
“I’ll try to make one of my demon starts, which is always hard with extra weight. We’ve got to dig deep and do whatever we can.”