Team BMW’s Colin Turkington is pleased with a triple points haul from last weekend’s British Touring Car Championship meeting at Rockingham, but expects a tough challenge ahead.
A podium in the final race moved the Northern Irishman back into the lead of the UK’s headline tin-top series by a 4 point margin over Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram.
By virtue of that, he will carry a full quota of 75 kilograms of success ballast to the next meeting at Knockhill in a fortnight, traditionally a strong meeting for the BMW 125i M Sport.
“I’m really pleased with the points haul and to finish the weekend in second, fifth and seventh is excellent,” Turkington said to TouringCars.net.
“Sam [Tordoff] was really fast in the early part of the race, but once his front tyres dropped off we were in good shape and I could hunt down Matt [Simpson].
“It’s nice to get second position on the last corner.”
He also admitted potential rainfall in the last race could have been a concern for WSR, but once clear of the threat he was able to focus on the task at hand; namely fending off Sam Tordoff’s Ford Focus and then attacking Matt Simpson’s Honda ahead.
“The opening few laps were tricky, for sure, it was spitting on the windscreen. It would have been a concern if that had come on, but thankfully it didn’t and I could get my head down and push forward.”
Knockhill has always inherently suited the BMW, but Turkington expects another plot twist in the championship fight again at the Fife circuit, with a difficult qualifying expected.
“It’s hard to know [what to expect]. I think it’s important to have the points in the bag, but the challenge starts again in qualifying for Knockhill, but I’ll give it everything that’s all I can do. I’m looking forward to it and enjoying it.
“We don’t have anything in hand any longer. You can see here I qualified 12th whilst giving it everything, so that’s where you’re at with full ballast, so I don’t expect to be hitting the first couple of rows.”