Dave Newsham: “It’s been a fantastic year.”

Team ES Racing driver Dave Newsham ended the 2012 season in the top ten in the championship standings, taking two wins for the small team and hails a fantastic year after a tough 2011.

Newsham finished seventh in the first race of the day at the final round at Brands Hatch, but retired in race two after contact with Jason Plato’s MG at Druids. In the third race of the day, Newsham drove from 21st on the grid up to sixth in the ex-Triple Eight Vauxhall Vectra, to end a great season for the team, with Newsham finishing ninth in the championship and sixth in the independents’ standings, and Team ES Racing finishing sixth in the teams’ classification.

” We’ve had reasonably good pace all day, and in the second race we were moving forward before we got, I believe, fired off (by Plato),” said Newsham to TouringCarTimes. “Which is a shame, as we’ve slipped down one in the championship now as Aron Smith got past us.”

“In that last race we were coming from the back and we thought it’s the end of the year, we won’t put on new tyres, we put old tyres and just went out and had a play, and I’m kicking myself for not putting new tyres now, “said Newsham, who finished just behind Smith in the race and just two points behind in the drivers’ standings.

“But it’s been a fantastic year,” said Newsham. “After I’d driven the car, I thought that I’m really at one with this car and if the team can keep delivering this car to me every round there’s a chance we could upset people, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

Looking ahead to 2013, with NGTC the specification of choice for all of the drivers, Newsham’s also looking at making the change.
“It’s got to be NGTC next year or I’ll go do something else,” he said. “We’re going to work hard through the winter to try and get the money together, there’s a few teams that want me on board, so we’ll see what drive we can land. Hopefully it’ll be a good NGTC package that we can do some damage with.”