NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish was buoyed by the pace he showed in last weekend’s British Touring Car Championship races at Brands Hatch, even though a tyre failure early on race day limited his results.
Having qualified as the best front-wheel drive runner in third on Saturday, less than a tenth of a second from pole man Colin Turkington, Cammish’s hopes were high of scoring a big points haul on Sunday.
Despite losing out to team-mate Ash Sutton at the start of the opening race, Cammish was soon back in a podium position when he passed BMW’s Adam Morgan for third, followed by re-passing Sutton for second shortly after.
However, disaster then struck for the Yorkshireman, who picked up a puncture on the soft tyre, dropping him to 18th, two laps down.
A fighting drive in race two saw Cammish gain 11 places to take the chequered flag in seventh, which saw him put in fifth on the grid for the final race of the day.
Holding his own up against a gaggle of drivers on the faster soft tyre, Cammish finished the race in fifth as the best driver using the medium compound rubber.
With that in mind, given how his day had started, Cammish was upbeat about his pace at the Kent circuit.
“I’m really pleased with my performance in the car and with the speed we had,” said the 35-year-old. “That was some of the best driving I have done, in terms of putting everything in place from handling the mental stresses to the starts and overtaking.
“Everything under my control I did as well as I could have, and the car was great and super quick.
“Qualifying was fantastic, finishing third behind the two BMWs which clearly had good performance this weekend, and that’s including missing early FP1 with a problem, which put us on the back foot.
“We’ve got such performance in the car that in race one we were going after Colin when the tyre gave up. We’re still not 100% sure why, but I’m not the only one to have a tyre failure as [Tom] Ingram, [Aiden] Moffatt and all kinds of people have had problems with the softs.
“My recovery in race two from 18th to seventh and then to finish fifth surrounded by drivers on the soft tyre in the last race was a brilliant effort.
“I go away buoyed that I’ve got a good team, a good car under me, and with the speed we’ve got, I know the results will come.”