Carl Swift says he is playing the long game at today’s TCR UK Touring Car Championship season finale, with the Maximum Motorsport racer on reverse-grid pole position for the second contest.
Swift’s CUPRA managed eighth for the opening race, clocking a quickest time of 1:11.895s around the 1.97 mile National circuit at Donington Park, but courtesy of having the tenth-best second-quickest lap time, will head the field in Race 2.
That gives Swift – buoyed by the introduction of a specialist CUPRA engineer to the fold over the last two meetings – a golden opportunity to end the campaign with a maiden TCR victory.
“We kind of messed up a little bit on the fast lap,” Swift admitted to TouringCars.net after qualifying.
“We thought that what we had on the delta was enough for P5, and then everyone just managed to find a tenth.
“So race one is a bit of a ‘nothing’, but we’ve played for that reverse pole and gotten it, so I think I’ll sit this one rather than end it up on a wall!
“We’ve had a CUPRA engineer for the last two rounds and that’s helped us massively. What I’ve learnt in these last two rounds, I wish I’d known earlier and then progressed even more throughout the year.”
Swift admitted his mindset for the opening race – set to take place in wet conditions – is more conservative now than it might have otherwise been.
“I probably will drive a very safe opening race and not worry about where that position is and then try and get on the podium for race two; let’s see if I can hold them off for long enough!”
The opening race of the weekend starts at 13:15 BST.