Jack Goff admits “we’ve got areas to improve”

Joint British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) leader Jack Goff admits that his MG team have got “areas we need to improve”, despite coming away from Brands Hatch in joint lead of the drivers’ championship.

With a trio of top ten results, including a second-place finish in the final race of the day, Goff enjoyed a strong start to life at the Triple Eight Racing MG team.

With both Goff and team-mate Andrew Jordan still getting used to their MG6 machines this season, qualifying proved to be a challenge, having come after a morning downpour which affected each driver’s ability to hone the set-up to their liking.

Goff qualified sixth for the opening encounter, improving to fourth in a close-run race. The 24-year-old was also the top driver to finish on the soft tyre, eclipsing even the likes of early race leader Andy Priaulx.

Contact with Árón Smith at Graham Hill Bend on lap four of race two dropped Goff down four places, and he ultimately finished in ninth position.

The race three reverse grid draw saw Goff start on the front row alongside pole man Rob Austin. At the start he was beaten away from the line by Honda’s Matt Neal and despite later passing early leader Austin, Goff was unable to pass Neal for the lead, being forced to settle for second.

“I wanted a podium coming into this weekend, whether I thought I’d get a podium, I’m not too sure,” admitted Goff after the day’s races. “It’s nice to get it done and out of the way in the first weekend.”

Despite the strong weekend, which leaves Goff tied on 37 points with Neal, he readily admits that he and the team have got areas in which to improve.

“We weren’t quite close enough for a win today, but now we’re in a good position for Donington. We’re on the front foot and the back foot in some respects, we go into qualifying with a big lump of success ballast in the car and it will hurt us, but hopefully we’ll be good enough for a top seven or eight qualifying. But, we’ll drag it around and see what type of result we can get.

“We’ve got areas we need to improve, and we need to get to a point where both Andrew and I are challenging for pole and for wins on a regular basis. What this weekend has shown is that you really need to keep it clean and keep on top of the twists that the success ballast provides.”

Triple Eight Racing Managing Director admits that the challenge of having two new drivers in the team was evident at the first meeting, with neither driver being able to rely on previous set-up preferences around the short Indy circuit.

“It’s been a bit of a mixed bag for us,” said Harrison, whose outfit lead the manufacturers’ classification and lie third in the teams’ standings. “We need to refine a few things because we’ve got different drivers who do things in a different way now. That said, the team adapted well and the cars moved forwards in every race, which isn’t true of everyone in the paddock.”