Pyro Motorsport’s Ollie Taylor was satisfied with finishing second in the opening TCR UK Touring Car Championship race at Brands Hatch.
Taylor initially bested championship leader Daniel Lloyd (WestCoast Racing) at the start, but was re-passed by the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR at Clearways and couldn’t respond.
Nevertheless, it marked a podium finish on his debut behind the wheel of the Honda Civic Type R FK7 after a switch post-Knockhill.
“I thought I had him there!” said Taylor afterwards.
“I should have been alright to defend, I thought he was on my left at Clearways and thought ‘I’ll open it up a little bit and get a run onto the start/finish straight’ so he couldn’t attack into Paddock Hill Bend, and he was already on my right-hand side. It was too late, I couldn’t shut the door.
“I just tried to stay on his bumper for as long as I could, but it’s quite intense only being a few inches from another car around here and I just made a few mistakes.”
Regardless, the result moved Taylor up into second overall in the standings after a disappointing race for erstwhile runner-up Andreas Bäckman, and the former is hopeful of another strong result in race two, which starts at 15:45 BST.
“It’s good to be back on the podium, those points were much-needed and it’s also good for our championship in taking some points away from other people. Hopefully we’ll get a similar start in race in race two and see what happens from there!”