Jackson puts record time at Brands

Mat Jackson continues his strong form in the pre-season testing of the British Touring Car Championship 2008. Today an unofficial test was held at Brands Hatch where Jackson emerged as fastest, just as during the first test at Rockingham.
“Even I was surprised by that time. It’s a great boost for everyone in the team, but you still don’t know what everyone else has got up their sleeves and in some ways today actually doesn’t mean that much,” said Jackson.

“It’s in 13 days’ time that it will really matter. Hopefully we can repeat our performance. I’m pleased with my driving, I keep learning that bit more about the car each time out,” said Jackson to BTCC.net.

Second fastest was reigning champion, Vauxhall-driver Fabrizio Giovanardi. He put his fastest time in the first part of the test – 49.894.

But it was not enough to beat Jackson’s time which in fact is an unofficial record around the short Indy-circuit. His time, 48.873, was not only quicker than the pole position time of 2007, but also quicker than the pole time set by Yvan Muller in 2001 which has been the longest standing record in BTCC until now.

Third quickest was Team Halfords Tom Chilton in the Honda Civic. He put his fastest time in the afternoon – 49.005.

The two new Vauxhall-drivers Matt Neal and Tom Onslow-Cole followed each other closely. Neal was the faster of the two, but only with 0.064 seconds around the very short track.

All new diesel-drivers Darren Turner and Jason Plato made many laps today. Their best times were eight and ninth respectively in their SEAT Léon TDi’s.

Rounding out top ten was Gordon Shedden in the Team Halfords Honda Civic.