Jake Hill looking ‘only forward’ as Ash Sutton sits between him and a win at Oulton Park

Jake Hill placed his MB Motorsport BMW on the front row of the grid in qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, leaving the WSR driver feeling “positive for sure”.

Hill was almost left in no man’s land as he had over 0.2 seconds to Ash Sutton in front of him as well as Ricky Collard behind. After looking at the overall picture and how he compares throughout, Hill is ‘pleased’ with the performance after securing his first front-row starting position of the season.

“Overall good, yeah,” Hill told TouringCars.Net. “It was positive for sure; we’re back on the front row and haven’t been on the front row yet this year, so very pleased with that. We’ve just got to keep our head down.

“The car’s going well here and I feel like the step forward we made with the setup this weekend would hopefully transfer to other circuits. So overall just feeling a bit happier about the whole thing and we’ve just got to try and keep our head down now and get up the road tomorrow.”

Hill is adamant that his plan can and will work from the opening seconds of race day on sunday.

“[I’ll] just get him [Sutton] off the line, which I know we can do. Then just go and try and win the race. That’s it. If we can win the first race, that’ll make life easier for the second one, and then go from there.”

Despite the evident pace, Sunday is a complete lottery in terms of what weather will come and when. No matter what is thrown his way, Hill looks to some pre-season testing that gives him confidence in all conditions.

“We tested here in the wet in pre-season and we were very fast, so I’m feeling pretty confident even if it does rain, that we’re going to be okay.

“But, likewise, we’ve just gotta take it as it comes. Who knows if it is actually going to rain yet or not. I’m sure it will make an appearance, but how and when, we don’t know.”