Race Preview: Fabrizio leads into Thruxton

Round 4 of the BTCC gets underway at Thruxton this weekend. Thruxton is located near Andover in Hampshire just off the A303. The circuit offers excellent views and allows spectators to get very close to the action. The circuit length is 2.36 miles and Yvan Muller currently holds the lap record with a 1m16.369s in a Vauxhall Astra Coupe on 5th May 2002 during qualifying. Thruxton was on the calendar twice in 2007, featuring as the final race of the season where Giovanardi narrowly beat Plato to the title.

Previously at Thruxton
In 2007 Thruxton appeared on the calendar twice. The first round in May was dominated by Giovanardi who took victory in both race 1 and race 2, Plato won race 3. In October the BTCC arrived in Thruxton with Plato leading the drivers championship, closely followed by Giovanardi. Plato only had to defend his points advantage however like the first round at Thruxton, Giovanardi was on form taking the first two wins of the day and finishing the final race just high enough to knock Plato from the top spot. It was a dramatic end to the 2007 season.

The season so far
Giovanardi currently leads with 91 points, followed by Jason Plato on 75 points. Jason Plato has had mixed results since switching to the SEAT Leon TDI so will be hoping to improve. Matt Neal closely follows Plato with 64 points.

Quotes prior to the race
Jason Plato – SEAT Sport UK
“I love Thruxton, it’s a mega track. It can be a frustrating circuit without a strong engine because the straights are so long, but for the first time in ages I’m really looking forward to going back there. For me, Thruxton will be all about taking more points out of Fabrizio’s [Giovanardi] lead and closing the gap in the Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ Championships. It would be nice to score another win, and I think that is possible. We had a good race weekend at Donington, followed by a good day’s testing there. We’ve found the direction we want to go with the Leon TDI, we’re discovering the set-ups which makes the car tick and we’re down to the detail in terms of smoothing out the rough edges and making the car a little quicker and a little easier to drive. We’ve taken some big gambles on set-up during the first three race meetings of 2008, and Thruxton will be the first circuit we’ll come to with a clear idea of what we need to do. I’m really confident about our prospects at Thruxton.”

Darren Turner – SEAT Sport UK
“After our success at Donington, everyone in the team is on a high and looking forward to Thruxton. We had almost perfect conditions for testing – it was dry, it wasn’t too hot, there wasn’t any wind and the track was very consistent – so we were able to work through a lot of stuff the engineers wanted to try and we found a few new things that work very well on the Leon TDI. When problems occur, we now have more armoury in the engineering department in terms of tested options to go out on, whereas before it was all a bit of an educated gamble. It’s a new car and we haven’t driven it around Thruxton yet, so we don’t know for sure exactly how competitive we’ll be until we get there. The long straights should suit the Leon TDI, but there are two very long high-speed corners around the back of the circuit which are crucial to a good lap time. We were crucified on the long high-speed corners at Rockingham, so we’ll have to wait and see. But for sure we know the car a lot better now and the entire team heads to the next race meeting with a lot of confidence.”

Colin Turkington – Team RAC
“Thruxton is the next round of the championship and we can only hope for more favourable weather.  We had a strong car here at the final meeting last year, so we have to put the results of Donington behind us and look forward to a better performance at Thruxton.”

Mat Jackson – BMW Dealer Team UK
“It would have been nice to come away with a top five result in race one [at Donington], unfortunately we had a coming together with Chilton which made it even harder for race two. We opted for wets for the second, which felt right at the time; as there was no grip on the slick tyres, in hindsight we would have gone out on slicks so it was a decision that didn’t go our way; it was a bit of a gamble. Race three was a little bit lonely. The front wheel drive cars can get the temperature in their tyres a little quicker so that is where we struggled, but at the end of the day we will be going to Thruxton ballast-free where we hope we will have some clean dry racing and start rebuilding our points to remain in the Championship race.”

Schedule – Sunday 18 May (subject to change)
09.45 – Pits Walkabout
10.50 – BTCC Pit Lane Opens
11.00 – HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
11.40 – Formula Renault UK with Michelin
12.20 – SEAT Cupra Championship
13.00 – Ginetta Junior Championship
13.30 – BTCC Pit Lane Opens
13.40 – HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
14.20 – ELF Renault Clio Cup
15.00 – Lunch
15.30 – Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain
16.10 – BTCC Pit Lane Opens
16.20 – HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship
17.00 – Formula Renault UK with Michelin
17.40 – SEAT Cupra Championship