Kaye: “We should really be in the top ten”

James Kaye made his return to the BTCC after a four year absence this weekend, and qualified in 13th place in a Honda Integra run by his WRC Developments team with Barwell Motorsport.

The car is one of the older BTC-specification cars, a car which John George left behind with his move to Tech-Speed this year.

“It’s had a very rough life, yes,” said Kaye to TouringCarTimes.

“It was built by Team Dynamics in 2005, then it was bought after that by David Pinkney, had a bit of a rough ride, then it was bought by John George and had even more of a rough ride.”

“So we’ve completely rebuilt it, we started from the rollcage out really and did everything we possibly could to make it into a car which would hopefully be reliable.”

Kaye has qualified in 13th place, and is the second fastest of the four Integras, with Paul O’Neill qualifying in seventh place.

On qualifying, Kaye’s satisfied with the result:
“We’re over the moon considering we’ve got a gearbox issue, where we can’t change gears,” explained Kaye after qualifying.

“We didn’t have a clear lap, and can’t change gears, so I’m more than happy with what we’ve achieved – the cars never turned a wheel till this morning, I’ve not driven competitively for four years, so, it’s not too shabby.

“We should really be in the top ten today. We couldn’t cure the gearbox today, we’re working hard to sort it tomorrow.”

The Honda Integra is scheduled to be outlawed from 2011, as it’s built to the older BTC regulations, but Kaye’s not worried:
“We’ll build another one,” said Kaye.

“I think we’d like to have a go at doing an NGTC car, see what comes out of it.”