Excelr8 Motorsport’s Senna Proctor said he was pleased to bring home his first podium of the 2020 British Touring Car Championship campaign after struggling in the opening pair of contests at Knockhill.
Proctor, who now sits tenth in the Driver’s Championship just two points ahead of team-mate Chris Smiley, could only manage 13th and 11th in races one and two respectively before being drawn onto reverse grid pole for the final encounter.
With effectively two separate starts to the race which was initially red-flagged for an incident between Ollie Jackson, Mike Bushell and Sam Osborne at the chicane, Proctor would lose out both times to home hero Rory Butcher.
While he was unable to match the Scot for pace, he eventually finished a comfortable second position, over seven seconds clear of Chilton and running in splendid isolation towards the end of the race.
“The win would have been nice but I think today ultimately with the pace that we had in the car I think P2 was OK,” Proctor told ITV.
“We struggled in race one and two and then it’s another trophy for the team which is what I was determined to do for the team to repay them for all their hard work.
“I’m happy with today’s work and I think we can try and roll onto Thruxton in a good place.”
The 2017 Jack Sears Trophy champion – who started his 100th BTCC race this weekend at the Fife circuit – admitted once he had lost out to Butcher he was focussed on consolidating second position to bring home his first podium of the season in the Exceler8-run Hyundai i30 Fastback N.
“Rory got me off the start – he was quick both times off the start – I didn’t do the best job there. But I was just trying to hunt him down, I pulled a little gap to the cars behind so my main focus was to watch Rory and just try and keep up with him as best I could.
“Once he broke away a few seconds then I started to just consolidate and look after the tyres. I was wary of Tom Chilton in my mirrors so I think I managed the race well and I’m really happy to just bring home a podium for the Exceler8 Motorsport car.”