Jackson recovers the day with race three win

Mat Jackson has jumped back into the third in the championship in an eventful day for the Motorbase Performance driver, winning the final race from tenth on the grid.

The weekend had started badly with just one flying lap in qualifying putting Jackson seventh on the grid.

Though the Focus ST had a fast start and was looking set be up a few spots at the start, contact with the Arena Ford Focus of Tom Chilton in the first corner saw Jackson off the circuit and down to tenth, though he’d recover to finish fifth.

In race two, there was another incident between the two Ford drivers on lap 12.

“We were quicker than him, he made a mistake at the Old Hairpin and ran wide,” explained Jackson.

“We got the cut-back up the inside into McLeans, and then I think Tom just ran out of talent and just used the other Ford as a brake.”

Tom Chilton explained the accident was a mistake, rather than an attempt to take the rival Motorbase Focus off the track.

“I made a mistake going through the Old Hairpin, had a hell of a lot of oversteer and I was slow up the straight, and Jackson got alongside me,” said Chilton.

“I was on the outside on the kink-left, and going into the kink-left I was in-front, and then he sort of diagonally came in-front and braked, and I braked when he braked, but unfortunately I locked up the fronts, and I couldn’t stop quite as quick as Mat.”

“So yeah, it was really unfortunate for Mat, I feel for him, but I’m sure if he was behind me he might have accidently done the same thing. It was a complete accident, it was not malicious at all, and I do need to go and apologise to him.”

In Race Three, Jackson started from his race two finishing position of tenth, and had another strong start, up to sixth before the Craner Curves on the first lap.

“(It was) frustrating to start from grid ten, I didn’t think we’d get through. If we did, it’d be a tough fight, but we we managed to get through. There were a couple of incidents, we got a fantastic start, the Focus puts mega traction down.”

At the Craner Curves, three cars were taken out of the race with Nash and Jackson lucky to be able to continue afterwards.

“It was two abreast through the Craners, James (Nash) came across on me, I had two wheels on the grass, Tom (Chilton) got tagged and obviously went off, but it was just carnage at that point.”

“All I knew was James was pushing me across the circuit and off onto the grass, and I didn’t want to go there as when you get on the grass you end up off the circuit and into the hairpin.”

Nash was subsequently endorsed two penalty points for the incident, but after his run of podiums now leads both the overall and independents’ championships going to the next round at Thruxton, where Jackson reckons Nash and the closely matched Eurotech Racing Vectra of Andrew Jordan will be very strong.

“I think the car round there has always been the Vectra…I suspect it’ll be no different this year.”

“Thruxton’s a funny place, it often comes down to more of an endurance race at times than a sprint race, so I think it’s going to be interesting, but feeling confident and looking forward to it.”