Speedworks pleased to ‘finish on a high’

Speedworks Motorsport rounded off its third season in the British Touring Car Championship with its biggest points haul of the season as Dave Newsham secured a top five finish.

Christian Dick, Speedworks Motorsport Team principal admitted that he hoped the team would finish on a high after a tough 2013 campaign.

“We wanted to finish on a high and I think we managed to,” he said.

“For the second successive meeting, there has been a Speedworks car at the sharp end holding its own against the front-runners on track.

“That gives us great heart considering the improvement in performance has come from making significant set-up changes on a race weekend, and adjusting those accordingly as we go along.”

Dave Newsham matched the teams’ best result to date in the BTCC as he finished 4^th overall in the penultimate round of the season and he backed that up with a sixth in the final race of the season. He started the day with an 11^th place finish, matching his qualifying result.

“We went through the data from race one and made a lot of tweaks. The car felt mega right from the start,” Newsham explained.

His late run of form has seen the Inverness based driver finish 10^th in the drivers’ Championship and 6^th in the Independents’ drivers’ points standings.

“The car wasn’t as good in race three, but it was still a solid result,” he continued.

“There have been some frustrating moments earlier in the year, so it’s great to finish the season strongly and being competitive. It’s not bad to finish tenth overall in the drivers’ championship either,” the 46 year old said.

Team-mate Ollie Jackson concluded his season with a brace of points finishes after an unfortunate retirement from the opening race of the weekend.

Having suffered a broken driveshaft in the opening race, the Redditch based racer worked his way up to 13^th in race 2 before finishing on the verge of a top 10 result, having fought valiantly to catch Jason Plato.

“It’s a shame I couldn’t sneak inside the top ten in the final race,” said the 29 year old, who finished the campaign 19^th overall and 15^th in the Independents.

“I was on course to do that in race one too. It’s annoying; every time it has felt like things are looking up, bad luck strikes again.”

Speedworks Motorsport concluded the campaign 5^th overall in the Independents’ Teams’ Championship and 7^th in the HiQ Teams’ Championship.