Jake Hill says he is ‘over the moon’ with qualifying on the front row of the grid for Thruxton’s opening British Touring Car Championship race on Sunday.
Hill missed out on a maiden BTCC pole by just 0.086 seconds to Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom, although he secured his best qualifying result of the season nonetheless.
Having left the first visit to Thruxton earlier this year as the then-championship leader, Hill is confident going into Sunday’s three races about his prospects.
“I’m over the moon with that, especially carrying a decent amount of weight,” said Hill, who is carrying 39 kg of success ballast for going into the meeting fifth in the drivers’ standings. “We obviously went well here in round one and it’s nice to see we’ve continued that streak.
“We know the car is good here and obviously I did a pretty good job when we were here last. It was nice – it was a fantastic round one for us and hopefully it’s shaping up to be an awesome second time here this year.”
Hill had been on top of the times for much of the final ten minutes, until Rowbottom bettered his lap with less than three minutes remaining on the clock.
“I thought that it might be my first pole, but it wasn’t meant to be. It was a great job by Dan, because that’s no mean feat.
“But nonetheless I’m still absolutely thrilled with second – away we go!”