Daniel Rowbottom ‘didn’t expect pole’ after morning migraine

Daniel Rowbottom admitted that he didn’t expect to claim pole position in qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton, after he had suffered from a migraine earlier in the day.

Rowbottom beat MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill to pole by less than a tenth of a second in a dry session in Hampshire, denying the Ford Focus racer his own maiden pole.

The Team Dynamics driver has now taken two poles in his second season in the BTCC, and admits that he hadn’t expected to be fighting for the top spot for race one.

“That was alright, that one, I’m happy with that,” said Rowbottom, who had earlier been eighth and fifth in the two free practice sessions.

“I didn’t expect that this morning. I suffer with migraines, and I woke up this morning with a horrible pain behind my eyes thinking ‘this is going to be a tough day’.

“I perked up a bit just before qualifying after a bit of food and that’s how we delivered it.”

Rowbottom added that he had to be careful with his tyres in order to achieve pole, as Thruxton’s track surface is much harder on the rubber than other UK circuits.

“The problem is here you’ve got such a small window on the tyre. If you push half a lap too early before your actual flying lap you take the edge off the left-front and vice versa if you don’t get the rears up to temperature, it’s a bit scary at the back in the quick stuff.

“But it’s great, it’s fantastic. The car is great, the team is great everything is fantastic.”

Alluding to the fact that he lost the lead at the start of race one at Brands Hathc Indy the last time he had pole, Rowbottom hopes to make a stronger start in Sunday’s first race.

“I’d better do a better start from pole than last time, so the pressure is on! We did get the starts quite good at Oulton, so let’s have a go and see what happens!”