Motorbase Performance’s Ollie Jackson was delighted to secure his best British Touring Car Championship qualifying result at the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit.
On home soil for the Wrotham-based squad, Jackson’s team-mate Rory Butcher secured pole while he managed his strongest qualifying result in the series to date.
He told ITV he was particularly pleased to enjoy such a good result after struggling to find a balance in his new-for-2020 Ford Focus ST across the pair of practice sessions earlier in the day.
“I think my best [qualifying result] up until now was P7 last year. I’ll be honest it’s been a bit of a funny old day,” he admitted.
“I struggled a little bit in the first couple of free practice sessions, struggling to find a balance and I wasn’t that happy with the car.
“We came into qualifying, put a fresh set of slicks on it and it’s been mega. The team have done a fantastic job, it’s a great result for the team.”
Heading into qualifying, the only major change Jackson made was running new tyres on the car, after telling ITV his engineer wanted to stick with the setup they had on the Focus ST.
“To be honest, I think it was more about the fact we were running around with pretty old tyres on,” said Jackson.
“Sensibly my engineer James, he ignored all of my feedback all day and carried on with what he wanted to do!
“We stuck the new tyres on and worked a treat so that’s all it needed really.”
When questioned whether the result adds extra pressure, Jackson was confident in his and the car’s ability at the team’s home circuit.
“There’s always pressure in touring cars, it doesn’t matter where you start.
“It’s always close, but to have such a great qualifying, it’s a great start to the weekend and it puts us in a safe position for the day and to have a really good day out tomorrow.
“I always drive my own races and I go for the results that I think that I can achieve.
“It’s great to start in P3 but ultimately we’ve got the pace to be up there so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
“Tomorrow is a different day but we’re in a strong place.”
The opening British Touring Car Championship race of the weekend is scheduled to get underway tomorrow [9 August] at 10:50 BST.