After last weekends British Touring Car Championship meeting at Snetterton, Jack Goff had to console himself with a brace of points finishes, with the Team IHG Rewards Club driver unable to fully showcase either his or the BMW 125i M-Sport’s potential.
Laden down with 39 kilograms of success ballast as a result of his strong championship position heading into the weekend in Norfolk, Goff could only manage 16th during another frenetic thirty-minute qualifying session on Saturday, placing second in the inter-team battle between WSR’s Sam Tordoff and new championship leader, Rob Collard.
Goff made solid progress during the opening contest, taking a tally of five places en route to 11th. However, an issue before the start of the second encounter prevented him from taking the start, with a similar issue befalling Tordoff in race three. However, Goff bounced back in the last race from 26th on the starting grid to claim another three points with 13th at the chequered flag.
He highlighted the long straights around the Snetterton 300 layout as detrimental to his charge, with the BMW stronger than it’s rivals through the corners, but less so in a straight line.
Despite the frustrations, however, Goff was in a pragmatic mood when reflecting on the weekend, and believes he got the maximum from the car during his race three fightback.
“It was just one of those weekends that you have in motorsport,” he admitted.
“We had a bit of ground to make up after qualifying, but I was sure that three top-10 finishes were possible,”
“Eleventh in Race One was a good start from 16th on the grid, but then we had the issue pre-race and that was that. I made a good start in Race Three and was into the points after a lap – from 26th on the grid – but it was difficult to make progress; the BMW is fantastic through the corners, but some of the other cars were able to re-pass on the straights, so 13th was as high as I could manage.”
Team Principal Dick Bennetts also believes that Goff was unfortunate to miss out on a potential reverse-grid draw as a result of his race two retirement, but underlined the potential of both driver and car and believes a resurgence at Knockhill in a fortnight is on the cards.
“Today didn’t work out quite as we’d hoped for Team IHG Rewards Club as there were a couple of things that didn’t quite click as they might have – and that could have made a big difference to our weekend.” he explained.
“Jack was very unlucky to have an issue that prevented him from taking the start of Race Two. He’d likely have finished in the top 10 and from there, could have found himself at the front – and on soft tyres – for the reversed-grid race.”
“The points situation is very tight from fourth down to Jack in 10th, so Knockhill provides him with plenty of opportunities to make up ground.”
As mentioned, Goff now sits 10th overall in the Drivers championship as the BTCC prepares to make it’s annual trip north of the Scottish border, with a deficit of 50 points to close on standings leader and team-mate Collard.
The series reconvenes on the 13th-14th August.