Jack Goff was left perplexed to have struggled for pace so much in last weekend’s British Touring Car Championship races at Croft, which saw the Eurotech Racing driver fail to score a single point all weekend.
Goff challenged for podiums at each of the first four events in 2018, but at Croft the Honda racer was nowhere to be seen at the front of the pack, having qualified in a lowly 26th.
The 27-year-old could only manage 21st and 18th in Sunday’s first two races respectively, before retiring from race three with a puncture.
The lack of pace from Goff – whose team-mates Matt Simpson and Brett Smith also struggled – has left him slipping down in the drivers’ championship standings, from joint second just 12 points adrift of the top of the table, to seventh and 50 points adrift.
“We’ve suffered massively from FP1 all the way through, really,” Goff told TouringCars.Net. “It’s a fundamental issue that we haven’t been able to cure and I’m glad to see the back of it, really.
“That’s six races over two years I’ve scored zero points here, but it is what it is.”
Goff admits that he fails to understand how the Honda civic – which won in the hands of Simpson at the previous meeting – suddenly struggled for pace so much at Croft.
“The car was quickest at Oulton Park two weeks ago. We had the fastest car pretty much – Matt won the race and I came back through to fourth in the last race and we’ve come here pretty much as we ended Oulton Park and qualified 26th.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s something we haven’t found, or we don’t know what to do. It’s a real weird one – this place doesn’t seem to work for us and we don’t have any reason really why that is.”
Despite his lack of pace, Goff is confident of returning to form at the next event at Snetterton in one month’s time – the venue of his first-ever BTCC win in 2015.
“It’s weird – I feel like we’ll go to Snetterton and be back on the pace – I feel like the car should be good there. I don’t know why this place is so different for us.
“Since last year at Snetterton, just after the mid-season, we’ve been quick wherever we’ve gone, every track we’ve been to. Then we come back here, and we’ve struggled again. I don’t know why or what the problem or the cure is at the minute.
“I’ve gone from second to eighth [in the championship] and we’ve gone from 12 points off to 50 points off, so it’s pretty horrendous, but it’s a long year and we’re only halfway through. We’ll get our heads down and make sure we have a good second half of the year.
“Unfortunately this weekend we haven’t been able to get any points on the board and that’s really hurt us so we need to make sure we have three solid finishes at Snetterton.”