Rob Collard grateful of race restart after podium charge

A relieved Rob Collard said the full restart in the second race at Brands Hatch was a fundamental part of his eventual charge to a second place finish.

The West Surrey Racing man was caught in an incident with Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin heading into Druids on the opening lap, with the resultant contact pitching his BMW 125i M-Sport into the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type-R of former team-mate Jack Goff.

Collard dropped down the field, but the nasty startline accident for Team BMR’s Jason Plato meant the red flags flew shortly afterwards. After the restart, Collard picked his way through the field to come home less than a second behind winner Gordon Shedden.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Collard said: “I was so relieved because Rob Austin put me into a spin at the top of Druids, and put me into a spin.

“I dropped virtually to last, so to get a restart was fundamentally crucial to me.

“Then [after the restart] I just picked them off once at a time. I worked well with my team-mate [Andrew] Jordan, as I was a lot faster at that point of the race. The car was amazing, and to get Tom [Ingram] at the end was brilliant as well.”

Collard was also full of praise for the new BMW engine he is running for the first time this weekend.

“The engine is a classic BMW engine – it’s got lots of power right the way through the range, and it’s a better package than last year,” he said.

“It’s running absolutely faultlessly and I feel we can do more development on it as the year goes on.”

Eight cars will be reversed for the final race of the day, meaning Collard will start from seventh.