Halfords Yuasa Racing’s Dan Cammish predicts reigning champion Colin Turkington will “run away and hide” in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Oulton Park due to the “ominous” pace of the new-for-2019 BMW 3 Series.
The two-time BTCC race winner showed encouraging pace in both practices, ending the opening session second before going one better in second practice to top the times.
In qualifying, standings leader Turkington set the benchmark of 1:25.825 in the first third of the half-hour session, with Sam Tordoff coming closest to toppling him, while Cammish was just over two tenths adrift of the Northern Irishman.
Cammish told TouringCars.Net he was pleased to be third, feeling he had done the “best job possible” whilst he believed there was “a little bit of sandbagging” amongst his rivals.
“I’m actually happy to be third, being in the top three of this championship is bloody hard work. It doesn’t matter if you’re qualifying or racing, it’s very tough,” said Cammish.
“I did top FP2 but I’m not actually sure the lap in FP2 was all that great but it just happened to be the fastest. If you actually look at the lap time it was quite a lot slower than we did in FP1, so I was surprised by that.
“It also probably shows that there’s a little bit of sandbagging going on out there. But we were P3 today because we were P3 – I was the third-quickest guy out there today.
“I think there was a little bit more speed left on the table, but by my calculations it ain’t more than a tenth, and it ain’t the two-and-a-half tenths we needed to be on pole.
“I always say when you get out and can say you’ve done the best job possible, no-one can take that away from you.”
Heading into the trio of contests tomorrow [30 June], Cammish says the focus is on getting “points out of the weekend,” and feels beating Turkington and keeping Andrew Jordan’s BMW behind will be a tough task.
Cammish continued to note his surprise at the “ominous” pace of the new BMW 330i, but credited the WSR-run outfit for their dominance so far in the 2019 campaign.
“Tomorrow’s another day, but I think ultimately Colin [Turkington] will run away and hide, but the question will be can [Andrew] Jordan jump me and Sam Tordoff on the run to turn one, I wouldn’t count it out,” he said.
“I think if I’m on the podium in race one tomorrow I’ll consider that a good start to the day – I want points out of this weekend.
“I really thought today, having watched FP1 and FP2, I thought it was going to even out again. Which I thought great, it gives us a chance to fight back in the championship.
“Then on his first flying lap he [Turkington] does a lap that no-one can beat, when he was a second slower in FP2. It’s ominous, very ominous.
“I know what it takes to get the best out of yourself and of the car and what it takes to do a lap a second quicker.
“I’d like to know how fast he could if he really had to, with no weight in it. All three of them are in the top seven, I’ve raced Tom [Oliphant] over the years in rear-wheel drive so I know him well.
“Clearly they’re just doing a great job at the moment, it’s up to the rest of us to put our heads together and figure out how we can slow it – or how we can catch it I should say! I’d love to slow it down!”
Despite Cammish not knowing what the Team Dynamics-run operation can do to catch the BMWs, he credited the outfit for the improvement and development they have made from the Oulton Park round last season.
“I don’t know what we can do at the moment, we’ve got better,” he said.
“Look at this round this 12 months ago, I qualified 14th, Matt [Neal] was fifth, I was a chunk away from the front row, a year on we’ve developed and got better.
“Arguably we’re right at the front now, but this BMW has just come right out of the box, no teething issues basically. Tomorrow when Colin [Turkington] wins what will that be? Seven out of the first 12 or something?
“It’s a bloody win machine. It’s just a dominant car unlike we’ve seen in a long time. In the rules is there enough scope for us to catch? That’s what we all need to go away and think about, what can we do to catch them.”