With another trip to the podium for the third time this year, Jack Goff knew that he would come under pressure in the latter stages of round 16 of the 2017 British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton, which saw him finish 2.332 seconds behind eventual race winner Ashley Sutton.
The pair had a close-quarter battle on the penultimate lap of the race, going side-by-side on the run down to Oggies from Hamiltons, with Sutton bravely putting two wheels of his Levorg onto the grass, before getting the upper hand.
“We did and picked up the pace by a couple of tenths to edge the gap out again,” said Goff to TouringCars.net post-race, having taken his first podium since race three at Thruxton back in May.
Goff was also in the lead from the halfway point of the race, after a spin out from initial leader Colin Turkington on lap seven saw him back at the front.
“We did and picked up the pace by a couple of tenths to edge the gap out again. It took the last bit out of the tyres on the last couple of laps, and I knew that when he got close to me, it was going to be very difficult to hold him off on the braking zones into the hairpins.”
The High Wycombe driver also admitted that he was going to be “hard and fair” when Sutton prepared his charge past the Eurotech Honda Civic, even with soft tyres that had come to the end of their operating window.
“I forced him as much as I could. I’m not a dirty driver, but can certainly be a hard driver. I wasn’t going to let him get past me easily, so I fought back as hard as I could.”
Goff is feeling both comfortable and optimistic for the rest of the day, having also explained that he carrying out a test run using ballast in the Honda Civic Type-R in free practice.
“We’ll go out in the next one, even though we’ll have 66 kilos to deal with. I’m hoping the mediums will counteract the balance, as we ran with it in free practice one and it felt good. So who knows.”