Weekend of ‘massive highs and massive lows’ for Jake Hill at Silverstone

Jake Hill described a weekend of ‘massive highs and massive lows’ in the British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone, after a race one victory turned into a tease at maintaining a title tilt.

Hill went into the weekend third in the drivers’ standings, and duly qualified his BMW in fourth for the opening race, once again as the leading WSR-run driver.

Making the correct decision to bolt on wet weather rubber for the opening race, Hill surged from fourth on the grid to lead at the start, and never looked back as he eased to a comfortable win by over five seconds.

That moved him up to second in the championship, 41 points adrift of leader Ash Sutton. In race two, Hill looked set to repeat his win and further close the points gap, but after a mid-race safety car intervention his car developed an electrical misfire on a control component, dropping him to 12^th, before he was then hit by Aiden Moffat into a spin at the last corner, ultimately finishing down in 20^th.

Hill’s fortunes were compounded by the fact that, had he finished in 12^th, he would have been randomly drawn to start race three from pole position.

Instead, the 29-year-old had to start from the tenth row of the grid, and whilst he recovered to eighth, his progress was limited again by an electrical misfire.

Taking 30 points away from the weekend, Hill is now out of contention for the overall drivers’ title, but can still finish as runner-up if he scores just three more points than Tom Ingram at Brands Hatch.

“A weekend of massive highs and massive lows,” said Hill. “Absolutely incredible to get a dominant win in race one with the correct tyre choice – I have to thank Mark [Blundell] and the team for helping us make a collective decision to put the right rubber on!

“After race one we thought the championship fight was back on and leading in race two filled me with even more confidence.

“Unfortunately, a violent misfire from a boost sensor failure meant we came home to finish 20^th. Race three was a decent comeback but again boost sensor failure hindered my progress and I had to settle for eighth.

“Overall, it was a fantastic job by all the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport crew and WSR. The car’s handling was incredible all weekend, just let down by electrical issues and the championship is fight over.

“Now we head home to Brands Hatch and we’ll look to have some fun and end the season on a high.”

Hill also paid tribute to Dan Kirby, his former Team Boss as TradePriceCars Racing, who passed away last week.

“Winning race one was particularly poignant as last week Dan Kirby passed away and I was proud to be able to dedicate my win to him,” added Hill.

“Dan was a fantastic guy and was Team Principal for Trade Price Cars Racing, the team Mark [Blundell] and I were teammates at in 2019.

“All our love and thoughts go to Dan’s family and friends.”