Halfords Yuasa Racing’s Dan Cammish was delighted to secure his maiden British Touring Car Championship victory in race one at Brands Hatch.
Cammish, who started on the front row alongside polesitter Brett Smith, jumped the Eurotech racer at the end of the opening lap with a cutback on the exit of Clearways.
He told TouringCars.Net that Smith was initially pulling a gap on him before having a big moment at cambered left-hander Stirlings, allowing him to line him up for an overtake.
“It was great, I didn’t make a bad start, Brett’s was better,” said Cammish. “I tucked in behind and he was actually pulling a little bit of a gap originally.
“I thought he’s got some speed about him, and I’d been told to protect the softs really, certainly in the first few laps I was letting it come up to temperature before you start to push on.
“He made a mistake at Stirlings – it was quite large – it let me get alongside into Clearways and I got the undercut on the way out and from there we controlled it.”
The multiple Porsche Carrera Cup champion and now BTCC race winner believes good pace in the first couple of sectors of the 2.43-mile GP circuit gave him the “breathing space” he needed to hold on to victory.
“I was really quite good into sector one and two, and it just gave me the breathing space around the back which meant I didn’t have to take too much out of the tyre,” he said.
“When I did push on in the middle of the race I just broke the tow and off we went really. It was great then to see Matt come through, obviously I had the call on the radio that we wouldn’t be racing this one out.
“So that was great to know. From then it was just about controlling the race really, I was watching for Brett and [Jack] Goff, if they were coming towards Matt I would have picked the pace up a little bit but we were well clear.
“So it was just a matter of bringing both the cars home in one piece.”
Cammish will now carry maximum ballast aboard his Honda Civic Type R FK8 for the first time in a race situation, but believes the experience he has with full weight on in testing will help him to score a solid result.
“The pace bodes well, I’ve got full ballast,” Cammish said. “But we tested a lot in the winter though with full ballast, that’s how we do it so I think I’ve got a good car.
“It’s going to slow me up – of course it is – but the balance will still be there.
“I’m on the medium tyre so we can get on with it a bit. Let’s see what I can do, I’ve just driven 15 laps there that were sensible now I’m going to drive 15 qualifying laps!”
Race two of the British Touring Car Championship gets underway at 14:40 later today, with the final contest of the season scheduled to start at 17:30.