Jake Hill ‘riding a wave’ heading to the BTCC season finale

Jake Hill left Silverstone in a confident mood, saying hat he is ‘riding a wave’ ahead of the British Touring Car Championship season finale at Brands Hatch next month.

The MB Motorsport driver has, overall, been the top-scoring driver since the Oulton Park round in June, and he has now reduced the points deficit to championship leader Ash Sutton to just five points.

Hill again qualified well on Saturday, putting his BMW in second to score his sixth race one front-row grid position of the season.

The 28-year-old then held that position to follow Toyota’s Rory Butcher home in race one as the best-placed championship protagonist.

He went one better in race two, earning a third win of the season after fighting back from a poor first lap and catching and passing Butcher after a safety car period.

The final race of the day saw Hill start from eighth on the partially reversed grid, but he fought through to finish in fourth with a series of well-judged overtaking manoeuvres.

Hill told TouringCars.Net after the race that he had been thinking about the extra points earned with every passing move in the final race of the day.

“At this point it is full championship focus and every car I overtook I got closer to Tom [Ingram] and Ash and that’s all I need to do, be within touching distance,” said Hill. “Let’s see what Brands brings, but today has been a good day.

“I’m the top scoring driver in the whole second half of the season. The car is just flying at the moment. Me and the car have gelled so well at the moment.

“I’m definitely riding a wave and I feel extremely proud to be with this team and have everything I have around me. I just hope we can deliver this championship to them now.”

Hill couldn’t put his finger on one reason why he had become he top scoring driver over the second half of the year, but explained he had changed his approach after some early-season setbacks.

“My approach has changed massively since the start of the year. In this second half of the year I’ve re-evaluated things.

“We learned a lot about the car and how I like it in the summer break at the Snetterton tyre test and ever since then we’ve been flying.

“It’s fair to say that I’m just loving driving this car at the moment and as long as you’re enjoying it you’ll always be fast.

“I’ve got to keep doing what I’m doing because every weekend I’ve been gaining masses on the leaders, so surely if I do the same we can gain that five points no problem.

“I need to keep my head down, keep focussed and hope that the car is still in a great window by the time we get there.

“Both of them [Sutton and Ingram] are just as dangerous as each other. You’ve got to just go at it open-minded.

“It’s a qualifying game now at the moment. I’ve had such strong qualifying results this year and hopefully we can make it another front-row start at Brands GP.”