Jake Hill: ‘Our cars have been monstrously fast’

Jake Hill goes into the Silverstone British Touring Car Championship race day in a confident mood, expecting to have a ‘monstrously fast’ BMW on race day.

Hill qualified two tenths from pole position in a rain-affected session at Silverstone on Saturday, having switched to wet tyres slightly earlier than WSR team-mate and eventual pole-sitter Daryl DeLeon.

However, with the NAPA Racing UK cars struggling for pace, and Hill qualifying ahead of Dan Cammish and Daniel Rowbottom with whom he is fighting for third in the drivers’ championship, the reigning champion was in a confident mood for race day.

“We’re just fighting for wins,” said Hill to TouringCars.Net. “It would be really nice to try and get to third in the championship.

“The NAPA cars in general seem to be a bit slower than I would have expected to see them, and we’ve got a really good car.

“Our cars have been monstrously fast today in wet or dry. I think we can have a really good car regardless, especially over the distance of a race.

“Hopefully we can just have a good day on Sunday and I can close the points gap. That’s the only thing I’ve got to look forward to.”

Hill believes his change to wet-weather rubber in qualifying came slightly too early for him to have got the best out of the tyre and fight for pole.

“Being a lap earlier [on wet tyres], I just heated the rears out too much and by the time Daryl and [Gordon] Shedden came out really they were in the perfect window because it was just getting greasy, really nice conditions for a wet tyre, and they stayed a bit cooler which meant they could do a couple of laps.

“I was trying to be too efficient – in a way I kind of screwed myself, but I’m still happy with P3.

“Of course I would have liked to have been on pole and I definitely had it in me, I just went too soon. It’s as simple as that.”