MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill was delighted with a “brilliant” podium result in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill.
The Kent racer enjoyed his best qualifying result in the series to line up alongside polesitter Ash Sutton for race one, but was leapfrogged by Colin Turkington’s fast-starting BMW 3 Series on the run down to turn one.
Hill immediately fought back but would have to settle for third as the leading pair pulled away, leaving his FK2 Honda Civic Type R to defend from intense pressure from Tom Ingram’s Toyota Corolla in the final laps of the race.
After inheriting his first podium of the season last time out at Oulton Park, Hill told ITV it was a great feeling to secure his second podium of the 2020 campaign on the road this time around.
“It’s brilliant, it’s nice to actually get a hat and get a trophy and obviously finish on the podium,” said Hill.
“We always knew it was going to be an uphill battle – literally – against the rear-wheel-drive cars but I think I did the best I could and obviously we managed to bring it home in third which is great.”
Looking ahead to the second contest – which gets underway at 13:30 BST – Hill believes it will be tricky to live with the rear-wheel drive duo of Sutton and Turkington, but feels the front-wheel drive machinery will have more of a chance in the reverse grid encounter at the end of the day.
“Probably race three I would say the front-wheel-drive cars will come back. I think it’s going to be really hard to beat Colin and Ash again in race two, but if I can stay third again that’d be brilliant, or at least stay in the top five,” he said.
“I feel like the car is good, we lacked a little bit of traction there in the second half of the race and Tom started to come at me a little bit but luckily I was good enough through the chicane to keep him at bay.”