Dan Cammish ‘in a good place’ after Snetterton win

Dan Cammish believes he is in a ‘good place’ after claiming his first British Touring Car Championship win of the season at Snetterton, but the NAPA Racing UK driver says that he needs to rethink his overall weekend strategy.

Cammish set the pace in qualifying on Saturday, posting a new lap record around the Snetterton circuit to beat Team Vertu’s Tom Ingram to pole by 0.03 seconds.

He then scored a comfortable lights-to-flag win in the opening race of the day ahead of Ingram, although in doing so he was one of three drivers mandated to start the second race on the hard compound tyre.

With only the top three using the hard rubber in race two, Cammish, like his main rivals, fell down the order, struggling on the less grippy tyre as well as having the least TOCA Turbo Boost of anyone in the field and taking the chequered flag in 20^th.

After being the form driver of the weekend up until that point, Cammish admitted to TouringCars.Net that falling down the order was difficult to take and will likely prompt a review of team strategy going forward.

“In race two – no one ever wants to go from pole to 20^th,” said Cammish. “I could not believe it when my team manager told me that only three of us where on the hard tyre.

“The deficit is huge and I was 11^th after the opening lap – I could not get back in the queue. I just got bullied left, right and centre, and rightly so; we all do the same when we know there’s a tyre offset. Without a [boost] button either you’re in a world of pain.

“My theory on motorsport generally is you want to be on pole, and if there is a ‘feature race’ to win, I always thought it was the first one in touring cars.

“I now feel like you shouldn’t win, or be on the podium [in race one]. I’ve not scored the points that an ‘older’ touring car weekend would have yielded for me, doing it this way, but it’s the way I’ve always gone racing.

“We will review if this is the way we should go racing going forward, because the disparity is such that I don’t think you want to be going off at the front in the first race.”

Despite his race two struggles, Cammish was the fourth-highest points scorer of the weekend and lost only seven points to team-mate Ash Sutton in the title race, leaving Snetterton fifth in the drivers’ standings.

“Ash has had a good day – he scored seven more points and I’ve taken a few out of Jake [Hill], he’s only nine points ahead, and me and Dan [Rowbottom] scored about the same.

“The problem is we’re losing a little bit of touch to Ash. What happened at Brands will always hurt, especially against guys that are so good like Ash and Ingram, who don’t tend to have bad days.

“It’s still a long way to go and we’re certainly in a good position. I came into this championship wanting to finish in the top three, and obviously I want to fight for that victory, but I know how tough it is and I’m on course to be in the top three.

“Let’s see if we can turn it up a little bit more and chase Ash a little bit. We’re in a good place.”

Cammish is looking forward to the fact that next time out at Thruxton he won’t have the headache of having to choose a race to run an option tyre in, as all three races will be held on the same compound of tyre.

“I’ve always gone well [at Thruxton]. The car goes well, I go well, the team goes well.

“On the same tyre I’m confident we can go there and have a really strong weekend and that will hopefully be the one that sets us up nicely for Oulton Park.”