Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan was happy to reward his team with what he described as a “morale-boosting” qualifying result for the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Thruxton.
Morgan has endured a torrid first half of his 2019 campaign, and feels the results have not been representative of the Ciceley Motorsport’s potential.
He told TouringCars.Net that placing fourth in qualifying gave the team an immediate boost which he hopes provide some momentum for the second half of his campaign.
“It’s good mainly for the morale of the whole team, we’ve gone from being a team who was always qualifying near the front or top tens but getting podiums, wins and fastest laps,” said Morgan.
“Then this year everyone is still working equally as hard if not harder, and we’re not getting the results to represent what we’re capable of.
“When you come in from qualifying and you’re P4, the morale just lifts straight away.
“It’s been a great boost for the team, everyone is really happy. But let’s not get too carried away, it’s all about tomorrow.
“I think we’ve got a good car below us and there’s no reason why we can’t come away with three good results.”
For the Thruxton meeting, Morgan has changed his engineering structure within the team to include Paul Ridgway – who was involved in the build of the A-Class back in 2014 – and Steve Farrell who is engineering his car.
“After what we’ve gone through so far this year, it was time for something to change,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, the Italians have been great, we still really like them and they’re still good friends of ours.
“We had to change something within the team and try a different route. We’ve brought Paul Ridgway, who built the car back in 2014, who is engineering Dan [Rowbottom].
“As well as Steve Farrell who’s my engineer for this weekend and also for Silverstone. It’s just a fresh pair of eyes who have just come in and have been running different cars and have put their bits onto this car.
“It’s worked – but whether it just works here and doesn’t work at Knockhill – is yet to be seen. Still a long way to go yet.”
In terms of expectations for tomorrow, Morgan is keen to get three strong points finishes on the board as he currently sits 17th in the standings.
“We just want to go out and bring the car back in one piece,” Morgan said.
“Three good results is the aim for tomorrow.
“Touch wood we’ll have no more of the issues that we’ve been having. We’re at the end of the grid where hopefully you’re not going to be involved in other people’s accidents.
“I’ve had that three times this year. So touch wood it’ll all go well, we’ll stay out of trouble and bring it back near the front.”