Jake Hill confident of maintaining momentum at Croft

Laser Tools Racing’s Jake Hill is confident of maintaining momentum in his British Touring Car Championship title challenge at Croft this weekend, as he seeks to hold on to his lead in the drivers’ standings.

Hill heads to the North Yorkshire venue with a four-point lead over rival Tom Ingram, having claimed five victories already in the first half of the season.

The 30-year-old may have only won once before at the circuit, back in 2021 when he was in a Ford Focus. Since switching to the rear-wheel drive BMW in 2022, he has scored a best finish of fourth, whilst last year Hill secured a trio of points-paying positions.

Despite not having a win at the track in a BMW, Hill knows the car goes well at the circuit, with four victories for the 330 chassis since 2019, and BMW having claimed 18 wins at the track overall.

Hill also pointed to the benefit of having pre-season testing data from Croft as a reason to be optimistic this weekend.

“While it was nice to have some time off for the summer break after a busy start to the season, I’m very excited to be back in the car this week at Croft,” said Hill.

“We’ve had a fantastic first half of the season and now the challenge is to keep that momentum rolling into the final five rounds.

“The team has been busy during the break ensuring that we can continue to perform at our best and I’m feeling confident that our BMW 330e M-Sport will be well-suited to the demands of Croft this weekend.

“The track has a bit of everything, with slow, medium, and high-speed corners so we’ll need to maximise our time on track to get the car dialled in as quickly as possible.

“We were able to test here before the season so we have a good amount of data to refer back to which should give us a solid foundation to work from.

“The hybrid allocation is a factor we’ll need to manage effectively and getting through all stages of qualifying will be a challenge, so we’ll be pushing hard to get a good spot on the grid for race one on Sunday.

“The team has done an incredible job this season so far, but we have to keep up that level of performance every time we hit the track.

“We’ve achieved excellent results this year, and I’m confident we can maintain this momentum.”