Mat Jackson pleased with 2007 season

Mat Jackson of the British Touring Car Championship was more than pleased with his season end at Thruxton a couple of weeks ago. The Brit won the final race of 2007 after a long battle with Colin Turkington.
“What a fantastic way for everyone in the team to end what has been an incredible first season for us. People always remember your last result and winning just as we go into the off-season is really important,” said Jackson to BTCC.net.

Jackson’s team, Jackson MSport, is a small privateers team with a very small budget compared to the bigger teams. The BMW 320si that Jackson drove in the BTCC 2007 series is an ex-Andy Priaulx from the WTCC 2006.
“Our budget may have been only a fraction of what some of the bigger, more established teams have but we’ve consistently been at the sharp end and rattled their cages. Yes, there have been some tough moments along the way, but that’s all part of the learning process for the future,” sad Jackson.

The win at Thruxton was not the first of the season as Jackson managed to win the final race at Oulton Park earlier this year. But the season contained both high points and low points for the team.
“Low points? Matt Neal. We had some comings-together that I think could have been avoided, with in particular some very heavy damage at Knockhill that cost us a lot of money to repair, and we haven’t got the budget that teams like that can run to. For us I think that was probably the lowest point, because to try and close the gap to Colin after that was always going to be extremely tough,” said Jackson to Crash.net.

In the drivers championship Jackson finished seventh, only two points behind factory SEAT-driver Darren Turner.
“Overall it was a successful year. We finished two points behind the works SEAT of Darren Turner, we were the top rookie in the championship and we beat the other Vauxhall of Tom Chilton as well, so all-in-all I think it wasn’t a bad showing.”