Jack Goff was disappointed to fall away from the title race in the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill, after the Eurotech Racing driver took just two top ten finishes in the wet.
In dry conditions on Saturday, Goff could only qualify in 17th position, having to carry 48 kg of success ballast after entering the weekend fourth in the points.
That made race one a struggle for Goff, who made limited progress to take the chequered flag in 15th position.
Shed of his ballast for an even wetter race two, Goff made progress to secure eighth, whilst race three actually saw the Honda driver slip back and take just ninth.
Although he was in the points in all three races, Goff has now slipped to 77 points behind Colin Turkington in the championship battle.
“When we’re on it, we’re on it, and when we’re not on it we don’t seem to be able to fight that much, which is a shame,” said a stumped Goff to TouringCars.Net.
“I didn’t know what to expect really this weekend. In practice the car felt good and then in qualifying we didn’t get a clear lap, which then put us in 17th which obviously made it difficult.
“We chipped away in the races, but we didn’t really have the pace to move forward at the right speed.
“In the last race we just held station really. Nothing really kicked off – we didn’t really make much and we didn’t really lose much. We need to have a look at it and go again.
“We came into this weekend on the same ballast as Matt Neal, and we had a better weekend than he did. Dan [Cammish] didn’t have any ballast in his car and he had a good qualifying, and you tend to race where you qualify.
“One positive is that we’ve got last ballast going to Silverstone, so we’ll have to see if we can maximise the points we get there.”
The 27-year-old had to endure the worst conditions of the year in race two – and he found it difficult to make progress being unable to see the track in what is already a close field.
“Starting in the mid-pack, you couldn’t see anything out of the windscreen – I was literally guessing where the edge of the track was. But it’s the same for everybody.
“I just don’t think we were fast enough. The problem is that it’s so close between the top twenty – I think a tenth would have put me P7 in qualifying – and it’s very difficult to make up places when everyone’s that close to each other without having accidents.”
Goff is not completely giving up on his title hopes yet, hoping that he can turnaround his fortunes in the next event at Silverstone, where he took a win and a second last year.
“It’s not mathematically over, but we’re not really in the fight anymore. I’m disappointed – it’s never nice to come away from a weekend losing points to your rivals, but the only positive is that we’ve lost weight.
“Hopefully it means we can fight for pole at Silverstone and get some points on the board there.
“You can look back and say ‘what if’ but I just don’t think we had the pace and we need to figure out why.”