Shaun Hollamby hails AmD Tuning’s “best ever test”

AmD Tuning boss Shaun Hollamby has hailed his team’s “best ever” BTCC test, after new driver Dave Newsham showed encouraging pace in his first run in the NGTC Ford Focus.

Newsham completed 80 laps of Brands Hatch on Thursday in the Motorbase Performance-built car, and ended the day about 0.5s off the pace of the Honda Civics.

While Hollamby was cautious about how much can be read into the relative pace of the cars, he was nevertheless delighted with the team’s progress in recent weeks.

The team boss shook the car down himself two weeks ago, to allow Newsham a clear run on his first test day.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Hollamby said: “Dave settled into it very quickly. Wet or dry, we ran on old tyres, just so we could get used to NGTC. And it was the best test session we have had since we have been in touring cars.

“Dave was happy with the balance of the car, and once you have that you can tune other things. We ran through a full sweep of suspension and diff settings to get Dave comfortable.

“Motorbase did a full rebuild of the car, and they have been a joy to work with. David Bartrum and Oly Collins have been super-helpful. It would not have happened without their support.

“The car has not missed a beat, which means we can now concentrate on making it go quicker. That was a little bit of a problem with the Golf.”

Thoughts now turn to what AmD can achieve in 2014, after four years of running their popular S2000 Volkswagen Golf.

Hollamby said: “We have done our apprenticeship, and now we have got the equipment to do the job. It is down to us to make it happen. We are very strong on the engineering side, and we are confident.

“The only guarantee is that it’s going to be a very hard-fought season. I can honestly say there are 20 drivers out there who should have won a race, if they haven’t already.

“I will be disappointed if we don’t get on the podium by the end of the year, but more importantly, we need to finish in the points at every race.

“Dave is a very quick and solid performer, and he doesn’t get involved in silly skirmishes like some of the drivers do. The car and the level of driver available helped me make my decision (to buy the Focus).

“We are both of a similar ilk – we run our own small businesses, and we know there is more to life than motor racing – but we’ve still got the fever!”

AmD and Newsham will return to the track for their next test tomorrow (Tuesday) at Oulton Park.