James Cole admits that he is out to prove a point in his second season in the British Touring Car Championship, with the 25-year-old still seeing himself as a rookie driver.
Cole made his BTCC début at the start of 2013 for Tony Gilham’s Team HARD outfit, but only completed the first half of the season, taking a best finish of 13th on two occasions. The Southport racer feels that he has unfinished business in the BTCC and still thinks of himself as rookie driver, despite the 15 race starts to his name.
“We’re a new team and I know I’m not seen as a rookie driver but in my eyes I still am,” said Cole to TouringCars.Net. “I’ve done more mileage over the winter than I ever did last year full stop. That’s not how many miles we’ve done now – that’s how little we did last year. So I still see myself as a rookie and I just want to go out there and prove a point now.”
Cole, who finished the media day test in 17th position, added that he was left feeling frustrated at the end of the day with the Southport driver feeling he could have gone faster but for the weather.
“I’m actually a bit gutted that as soon as we put new tyres on today it rained,” added Cole. “It’s frustrating because you come here after doing quite a few days of testing to try and prove a point and then something as silly as the weather stops you doing that. But never mind – that’s motorsport and we’ll move on. We’ve got one more test before the first race and I’m looking forward to starting again.”
Whilst United Autosports are new to the BTCC, Cole added that he and the team have been working on an entry for 2014 ever since he stopped racing for Team HARD after the Croft meeting in 2013. He also added that the team have a long-term plan to stay in the BTCC.
“My last race was Croft last year and since the Monday after that I was straight on the phone to Richard Dean begging him to start a British Touring Car team. Eight months later here we are.
“We’ve done a lot of preparation – this has not happened overnight. There’s a lot of thought put into it and to have a quick team-mate like Glynn [Geddie] has made that job a lot easier as well.
“We’re not expecting to be winning races in the first half of the season – we want qualifying top tens or top sixes and then in the races we’ll develop from there. We were not competitive last year and this year we have a strong chance to be up there.
“This is not just a one-year deal. We’ve formed a plan with Richard to develop over a couple of years.”
