Team HARD’s Mike Epps enjoyed his best-ever weekend in the British Touring Car Championship last weekend at Brands Hatch, with the Volkswagen CC driver scoring a trio of top ten results.
After just two days of pre-season testing to get used to his new car for the coming season, the 25-year-old went into the season opener perhaps less familiar with his car than his rivals.
Epps had only once previously cracked the top ten, but after qualifying just outside the top third he went on to make steady progress in race one, crossing the finish line in a career-best ninth.
Whilst race two initially saw the Hemel Hempstead driver miss out on another top ten, the subsequent post-race exclusion handed to Rob Austin promoted him to tenth.
The final race of the day saw Epps replicate his form in the season opener as he crossed the line in ninth once again, with the trio of results leaving him an impressive tenth overall in the championship standings.
“I’m incredibly happy with how this weekend has gone, but I’m focused now, we’re climbing the mountain of the BTCC and I want to keep going,” said Epps. “We’ve got things to work on with the handling of the car and our soft tyre performance especially, but this is a fantastic foundation for the season.
“We made lots of changes to the car set-up across the weekend, but the car was strong every time we went out on track. We didn’t get to show our true potential in qualifying, but we were able to really battle hard in the races and take the results we deserved.”
Epps has already got his sights set on better results with the CC, with the car giving him more confidence than the Toyota Avensis he raced in his maiden season.
“We’ve got a hat-trick of top ten finishes under our belt, but now we want to push for more next time out.
“I don’t feel like this track suited our car that much, so we’re confident that we could be even stronger at Donington Park in two weeks’ time.
“I’d like to thank everyone that got us back here in 2017, my family and sponsors and the team for really upping their game this year.”