Colin Turkington leaves Rockingham with early title in reach
West Surrey Racing’s Colin Turkington says he was surprised to have pulled off two victories at the Rockingham circuit, which sees the 2009 champion head to the Silverstone finale with a good shot at securing his second drivers’ title one weekend early.
Turkington has a 55 point lead with 67 points available at a race weekend, which means he can secure the title at Silverstone in three weeks’ time by outscoring Jason Plato by more than 12 points.
“It’s been a super day. To win twice was a lot more than I expected,” said Turkington to TouringCarTimes. “We didn’t come here thinking we’d win a race, so to win twice was unexpected, but really nice.”
“We were improving the car every time, through free practice yesterday we had a balance, and were just slowly improving the car. The car was quite good for qualifying, but we worked at it last night to try and make sure we had the perfect balance for it today, and once we got those couple of laps over we managed the gap.”
In race three, Turkington started from sixth on the reverse grid, and was up to fourth by the first corner, passing the two Triple Eight MGs, but was then unable to pass the soft tyre-shod Honda of Andrew Jordan, and had to settle for fourth.
“The car probably wasn’t as strong on the softs as it was on the standard (tyres) for me,” said Turkington. “With Andy (Jordan), the places where I was stronger didn’t set me up for a pass, he could just do enough to stay in front. I had my nose up the inside once, but there was never a clear opportunity to get by.”
Heading into the final round with the mathematical chance of securing the title one round early, which last happened in 1997 with Alain Menu won his first title for Renault, Turkington said:
“Things can change so quickly, I’ve been here long enough to know that, so I’m taking it one race at a time. I’m really enjoying my racing this year, people are saying I must be looking forward to the season being over, but I’m not, I know how much I enjoy driving and how much I’ll miss it when the season is over, so I’m just really enjoying the moment. “
