Rory Butcher believes that he is ‘well placed’ to score strong result in the British Touring Car Championship races at Knockhill this weekend, one year on from the AmD Tuning driver’s début in the series.
Butcher made his touring car début at his home circuit at Knockhill in 2017, when he joined the championship to stand-in for the injured Luke Davenport at Motorbase Performance for the remainder of the year.
The 31-year-old went on to score two top ten finishes in his first weekend – his best of the year. He then signed to race an AmD Tuning MG6 for 2018, and to-date has taken a best result of sixthon two occasions, including in the most recent race at Rockingham.
That has made Butcher especially excited about returning home for this weekend’s eighth meeting of the year, as he seeks to go even better on home turf.
“I really can’t wait for the weekend to come around; I’m absolutely buzzing about it,” said Butcher. “Twelve months ago, my BTCC debut at Knockhill was very last minute and I was almost going in blind.
“Now I have twelve months of experience in the series under my belt and am in much better shape as a result.”
Butcher did caution against expecting too much of him, even though he hopes his local knowledge will pay dividends.
“As the home driver, there will be a lot of expectation from people and it’s important that we don’t get carried away, but at the same time, I go into the weekend hoping to push for some really strong results on track.
“Because of how unique the Knockhill circuit is, I’m hopeful that my knowledge will help us to make a bit of a jump forwards which will then put us in a stronger position for the three races.
“Given that we have raced stronger than we have qualified all year, I think we’d then be well placed to pick up some really good results across the weekend.”