BKR remain positive despite ‘reality check’

BKR team boss Nico Ferrari insists his first year outfit will fight back from the ‘reality check’ of Thruxton when the British Touring Car Championship heads for Oulton Park for the fourth round of the season next month.

Having secured podium finishes at both Brands Hatch and Donington Park, the VW team came down to earth with a massive bump at Thruxton – failing to even secure a point from the third meeting of the campaign.

A series of different mechanical issues worked against lead driver Aron Smith, who slipped outside the top ten in the championship standings as a result, with the team also dropping down to ninth in the teams’ title race.

However, Ferrari insisted that there were still positives to take from a tough weekend, with the difficulties of the Hampshire weekend ensuring the team won’t get complacent on track.

“Thruxton was a tricky weekend but there were still positives to take away from it,” he told TouringCarTimes. “It was always going to happen at some point and in a way, I’m glad it has happened sooner rather than later as it’s given us a reality check after we performed above our expectations in the first two rounds.

“How we deal with the situation going forwards is going to be the key factor as after Donington Park, I sat down with the engineers and we said that our biggest test would be keeping morale high when things didn’t go to plan.

“Luckily our heads haven’t dropped and Aron himself has been around long enough to know that weekends like Thruxton just happen sometimes.”

BKR will now seek to return to form next month at a venue where the VW CC won twice last year, although Ferrari admitted that the team couldn’t rely too much on that performance when it comes to make predictions.

“I’m confident that we can be strong at Oulton Park, although I thought similar before we got to Thruxton,” he said. “We have endless data to use but Thruxton showed that that data doesn’t mean a great deal if the conditions have changed so much.

“Going to Oulton Park, I think we need to revaluate things a little bit and work things out for ourselves. We have to make sure that we do our homework and are as prepared as we can be for the challenges that await.”