Colin Turkington insists he remains focused on winning this years British Touring Car Championship title with Silverline Subaru BMR Racing in the Japanese marque’s debut season in the championship.
The Ulsterman has already claimed a hat-trick of victories for the famous Japanese marque at each of the last three meetings and as a result now sits just 34 points adrift of standings leader and former team-mate Rob Collard as the series makes it’s annual trip to Scotland, and the notoriously challenging 1.27 mile Knockhill circuit.
Turkington, who already has two previous title successes to his name in both 2009 and 2014, has been arguably the star of Silverline Subaru BMR Racing’s quartet of strong drivers this campaign, and heads to Knockhill as the best placed of the four to take the challenge to both BMW and Honda, as Subaru also look to reclaim ground in the Manufacturers standings.
The team’s development in the early stages of the season initially set them back in the standings, but since the championship reconvened at Oulton Park in June they have been arguably the class of the field, winning at every meeting and scoring a total of 11 podium finishes between Turkington and Jason Plato, who celebrates his 500th career start this weekend.
Whilst some had initially predicted the Subaru Levorg GT would most likely just be a thorn in the side of the championship contenders once it’s pace had been realized, both former champions have moved themselves within striking distance of the title fight and three strong finishes at Knockhill could see Turkington move to within a race victories worth of points of the top spot.
He insisted he remains focused on the job at hand and refuses to call it quits on the title until the maths are against him, acknowledging that the annual trip to Scotland is one that stands out for him on the thirty-race calendar.
“I’ve been looking forward to Knockhill for some time and my aim is to build on this momentum and see how far up the leader board we can climb.” he commented.
“I won’t give up on the championship until it’s mathematically impossible. If we can keep the momentum going then there’s every chance.”
The entrance of the famous Subaru brand into the BTCC has certainly been one of the main talking points of the season; even more so their impressive surge in form to take the series by storm. The crowning story would be championship glory, something they are as likely as ever to take with Turkington or Plato at the wheel. Three more strong results at the weekend would certainly bring that objective even closer to view.
The first race gets underway at 11:50 on Sunday 14th August, with TouringCars.net on hand all weekend in Fife to bring you full session reports, driver reactions and updates via the website and our social media feeds.