AmD Tuning’s Sam Tordoff was delighted to recover to from a suspension failure in opening practice to then secure pole position for the second time this season at Thruxton.
The 2016 runner-up suffered from broken suspension at the high-speed left-hander of Noble, and felt he was on the backfoot due to lost track time.
Tordoff, who secured pole at Thruxton when the series last visited in May, told TouringCars.Net he felt the team had “done him proud” to recover and feels he has a good chance to secure his first victory of the season tomorrow.
“It came a bit harder this time. We’ve had a tricky day with the suspension failure this morning and then we didn’t really do any laps in FP1,” said Tordoff.
“We were then on the back foot in FP2 as well so the boys have done a good job today. They’ve done us proud because we were backs up against the wall at one point.
“I think we’ve got good race pace as well, and you always give yourself a good chance when you’re starting on the front row.”
After missing the majority of FP1, the team then relied on previous Thruxton data, but Tordoff feels the new surface has since changed in terms of grip levels.
“[The previous setup] wasn’t working in FP2! So the car that we qualified on is a completely different one which we put on pole here three months ago!
“So work that one out! There’s so many variables in conditions and track, I think the new tarmac that was down here at the start of the year has definitely not got quite as grippy as it was three or four months ago.
“So that’s changed the balance of the car a little bit. Today’s been not without its challenges but I’m really happy with the outcome.”
Although Tordoff is eager to secure a win, he admits he hopes to continue scoring points under the radar to recover from torrid opening few rounds.
“A win is the aim, but after the unlucky first few rounds we had, we just needed to score points,” explained Tordoff.
“I haven’t finished lower than sixth now for six races in a row. I don’t think anyone has really cottoned onto that.
“We’ve just been under the radar scoring points and even at Snetterton we had three top sixes and no-one noticed. So let’s have three more of them tomorrow! Then we’ll be firmly back up near the sharp end!”