Frank Wrathall and the Dynojet racing team will be hoping that significant revisions to the front-end of their Toyota Avensis will prevent some of the failures seen so far this season.
At Snetterton there were both highs and lows for the Preston-based team – in the first race Wrathall was able to score the team’s best-ever result of fourth and take their first Independents win. However following a bump in the second race of the day, Wrathall was forced to retire with damage to the car’s cooling system.
“We’ve undertaken a complete review of the front end, and in particular the cooling system, since Snetterton because we felt it was perhaps a little too fragile,” said Wrathall. “It’s been a big job, quite complicated and we had a couple of set-backs along the way, but now everything is back together and working well.”
The car was given a shakedown at Rockingham Motor Speedway on Friday and Wrathall hopes that there will be fewer retirements from now on – the Lancashire ace has had 14 DNF’s from 18 races this season.
“There are always going to be a few bumps along the way in the BTCC and hopefully we will be better able to take the knocks from now on,” added Wrathall.
Looking ahead to Knockhill the reigning Ginetta G50 champion admits that it will be a challenging circuit for the team.
“We haven’t tested the car there so we don’t really know yet how it will go, but my guess is that we may find it tough. However, the Avensis is so easy to adjust to circuits that I’m sure we will be able to get near the pace.
“Different tracks will suit different cars, and that is the beauty of the BTCC because it means that no one car dominates. We’ve shown what we can do, and hopefully we can do it again. The whole team will certainly be giving it maximum effort at Knockhill and for the rest of the season.”