Trade Price Cars Racing’s Jake Hill is hoping he can carry momentum from his maiden British Touring Car Championship victory last time out at Knockhill into the remaining rounds at Silverstone and Brands Hatch.
The Kent racer was stripped of victory for contact with Matt Neal at Oulton Park earlier this season, but set the record straight at Knockhill, fending off race-long pressure from Josh Cook to take his first series win.
He told TouringCars.Net he is still “chuffed,” and believes the final rounds of the 2019 campaign should favour his Audi S3, particularly for his home round at Brands Hatch for the season finale.
“I’m still chuffed with the win, but we’re at Silverstone now and we need to carry on,” said Hill.
“It was great, but we need to try and do it again or at least get back on the podium again before the end of the year. We’ve got six more chances to do it, so we’re working hard.
“Here and Brands [Hatch] should be good. I just love Brands, my home circuit and I always get on well there. It was the first place I drove the Audi back in 2015, so I’m really looking forward to that.
“Equally I love Silverstone, but it’s just so bloody close here. So it’s going to be tight as always. We’re changing a few little bits but I think we’ll be fine.”
Hill feels the Audi has developed well across the season, easily marking the most successful year for the car since it made its debut five years ago.
“The points we’ve scored and what we’ve achieved this year tells its own story I think,” Hill said.
“So far we’ve scored more points than this car ever has in its whole career, which is five years now.
“So I think that shows just how much we’ve improved the car and we’ve done well as a team.”
Hill placed 18th in the opening practice session after running used rubber, but feels fine-tuning the Audi for qualifying will be crucial because of the notoriously tight margins around the 1.64-mile National layout.
“I think we were one of quite a few not to do a new tyre run. That’s probably why we were lower down than we should be,” he said.
“I’m not worried about it, few little changes and off we go.
“We need everything we can get out of it because qualifying will be so tight, so let’s just try to get to grips with it in FP2.”
The second British Touring Car Championship practice session from Silverstone is set to get underway at 12:05 BST.