Motorbase Performance’s Rory Butcher believes he needs to “keep punching hard” against his title rivals in the trio of British Touring Car Championship races at Silverstone.
The Scot could only manage tenth and 11th across the pair of practice sessions, but setup changes to his new-for-2020 Ford Focus ST heading into qualifying and midway through the half-hour session enabled him to put the car third on the grid for race one.
He told ITV that “it came together in qualifying” after struggling throughout practice and felt it was fantastic to be up with polesitter Dan Cammish and front row starter Tom Ingram even if he was disappointed to be pipped by the latter in the closing stages by just 0.003s.
“I tell you that was tough,” said Butcher. “I can’t help but say how happy we were to get on the front row and then obviously we got pipped by Tom [Ingram] at the end, that was a bit disappointing.
“But to be up with these guys is fantastic because in practice we just didn’t seem to be showing that outright speed, and it came together in qualifying.”
Heading the second row for the opening race tomorrow [27 September], Butcher – who currently sits fourth in the Drivers’ standings – believes he has a great opportunity to slash the points deficit to the leaders.
“We’ve been changing the car all day and we even made a change mid-session and just before I went out for that final run we made a tweak to the front of the car and it kind of gave me a bit more confidence through the first turn,” he explained.
“It puts us in a great position for tomorrow, the points are so close up there at the top and we need to keep punching hard against these guys.”
In terms of expectations for the triple-header of contests, Butcher believes podiums are on the cards but is prioritising points instead of silverware at this stage of the season.
“I think there’s podiums to be had, we’ve got to race hard but we’ve got to make sure the points get up on the board,” he said.
“Dan [Cammish] looks like he’s got a hell of a lot of pace there, it’ll be interesting to see his lap with how big of a tow he got.
“These two are super quick and I’ve got Colin behind me, so it’s going to be a hard fight but we’re going to be aiming for podiums and we need to maximise points.”
The opening British Touring Car Championship race at Silverstone is scheduled to get underway at 11:27 BST.