Dan Cammish was pleased with ‘a sensible day’ in the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, which saw the NAPA Racing UK driver claim victory in his 200th start.
Cammish was, for the seventh time this season, the top NAPA driver in qualifying, putting his car in sixth on the grid for the opening race, although missing out on progressing to the ‘Quick Six’ due to an off in the inclement conditions.
However, the 36-year-old was pleased to have then finished the opening race in fifth, behind team-mates Daniel Rowbottom and Ash Sutton, marking the first time since the season opener that Cammish has finished behind his team-mates in race one of a weekend.
That meant Cammish was able to continue to run the faster, medium-compound, tyre into the second race, and build on his grid position.
He capitalised on an incident between Rowbottom, Sutton and Tom Chilton at the start of the fourth lap to move into second, before passing the hard-tyre-shod Tom Ingram for the lead two laps later.
Although a late-race rain shower could have cost Cammish the win, he held on behind the safety car to take his second victory of the season in his 200th race start.
Running the hard tyre for race three, starting from eighth on the reverse grid and having the least TOCA Turbo Boost (TTB) in the entire field, Cammish was always likely to struggle, and he took the chequered flag in 12th.
“This year I’ve found that I have sometimes ‘fallen foul’ of the rules by being too high up in qualifying,” said Cammish to TouringCars.Net.
“It means that I’ve been the guy that starts behind Tom Ingram, and at the moment no-one really beats Tom Ingram, certainly not in race one like-for-like, and I’ve ended up in a situation where I finish second.
“Before this weekend, you have to go back to Donington here, at the start of the year, where the first NAPA car across the line wasn’t me in race one. It shows we’ve been doing well. But the problem is then in race two when the hard [tyre] goes on [if you finish on the podium].
“I’ve not been scoring the points that I really deserve. Today, we got it right – we ended up fifth in race one, which is the best I really wanted. Me and Ash would have always swapped eventually and as it happened, he beat me on track, so it was fine.
“Then obviously the kerfuffle at Turn 1 [in race two] allowed me in to take a win, which was well earned and deserved, so it’s been a good day.
Cammish was first on the scene of a late-race downpour at the end of race two and was relieved not to lose the win.
“I had no warning [of the rain]. I could see the sky was getting dark up towards Coppice and I did think I’ll have to keep my eye on that.
“On the next lap coming up towards McLeans it was absolutely fine, and then it was like someone dropped a tonne of bricks on the bonnet; it hit me like an absolute wall of water.
“I didn’t see it coming, I had no preparation and I just slid straight on, but thankfully everyone else did too which looks like it made quite good TV!
“In race three I made another really good start but it fired me straight into a bit of a problem. I got on the wrong side of a couple of people on a better tyre and couldn’t get back in.
“Then everybody just deploys [boost] all the time. From eighth back, they’ve got all the deployment and they’re going to use it, and I haven’t got any of it.
“You just get beaten up and moved out of the way. You feel like you’ve brought a knife to a gunfight for five minutes.
“When it had settled down I was 15th and you’re thinking ‘this is crap’. In the end we actually did a couple of overtakes and brought it back to 12th to round out a sensible day.”
Points-wise, it was Cammish’s third best weekend of the season, although he still feels frustrated at how the current sporting rules disadvantage the drivers who score strong results.
“It’s tough at the moment. The touring cars of old that I used to enjoy, where you could score strongly in all three races is gone and now it’s really hard. I can have two [good results], I just can’t seem to have three.”
Cammish sits third overall in the drivers’ standings and is hoping to hold that position to the end of the season, with six races left to run.
“We’ve done a good job. I’m certainly more comfortable, happier and faster than I’ve been in this car.
“We’re on an upward trajectory – eighth in year one, sixth, fifth and I’m working hard to make sure I’m third this year, and that’s with a few cock ups on my side that have cost me a lot of points.
“I think third would be a fair reflection of where we are. Hopefully it’s not long until I can crest and get to the very top, so I’ll keep working.”