Adam Morgan pleased with ‘decent’ podium at Thruxton

Adam Morgan described his race three podium in Thruxton’s British Touring Car Championship races as ‘a decent result to take to Oulton’ even though a small mistake meant he couldn’t claim a first win since joining Team BMW.

A challenging qualifying saw the Lancashire racer manage just 15^th, a fraction over a second off the pace, after struggling with the balance on his car and then losing his best time, good enough for the top ten, for exceeding track limits.

That meant Morgan had to battle up the order in race one, and he was running as high as eighth before ultimately finishing in 13^th after losing out in a tight late-race scrap between Ricky Collard, Árón Taylor-Smith, Bobby Thompson and Tom Chilton.

Limited progress in race two – even at the font the top seven cars finished where they started – meant Morgan could thus only move up one further place to 12^th.

Luckily for the Lancashire racer, that ended up giving him the reverse-grid pole for race three, and although he led the opening nine laps of the race, a small mistake allowed Daniel Rowbottom into the lead and Morgan had to settle for second.

“If you’d told me after qualifying that I’d finish on the podium today, I’d have taken it with both hands,” said Morgan, who has moved up to eighth overall in the drivers’ standings.

“We had the pace to be inside the top eight today, as I proved in the opening race when I got up there from 15^th but then got boxed in and shuffled back on the last lap. We showed the potential of the BMW in that race.

“I couldn’t make progress in race two because my relative pace was the same as the cars around me, but we had a bit of luck with the race three draw and the podium is the result.

“I knew that if I got caught, it would be tough to stay ahead. I made a small mistake and had to settle for second, but it’s a decent result to take to Oulton.”

WSR Team Principal Dick Bennetts was pleased that Morgan, who has two prior victories at Thruxton in WSR-built BMW machinery, was able to leave the circuit, which ‘favours front-wheel drive cars more’, with a podium result, the team’s only rostrum of the weekend.

“Today was always going to be a bit of damage limitation because Thruxton favours front-wheel drive touring cars, so to come away with a podium is a good result for Team BMW and especially for Adam,” added Bennetts.

“We need to look at ways of getting back onto the top step of the podium, but Oulton Park and Croft, which are next up, should give us a fighting chance of doing that.”