Alain Menu “shows what he can do” with first “clean weekend”

Alain Menu pulled out three of his best performances of the season, including his first podium since his return to the BTCC, on his first visit to Rockingham .

The Team BMR driver showed strong pace all weekend in the Volkswagen CC, qualifying in eighth place before using the soft tyre to take fourth in race one, following the result up with sixth in race two.

The reverse grid then worked in Menu’s favour, placing him on pole for the final race alongside the Audi A4 of Rob Austin. Austin used his rear wheel drive advantage to jump in to the lead past Menu at the start, with the pair holding their placings for the remainder of the race, allowing Menu to take his first BTCC podium since his return to the series.

“I tried very hard to catch up or to stay with Rob and then to catch him up but there was no way, but I’m very pleased with second place,” Menu told TouringCarTimes. “It’s what I’ve been saying for quite a while, I haven’t had a clean weekend until this one, until Rockingham, and really we should have had podiums before earlier in the season if it wasn’t for bad luck.

“This was the first weekend without any trouble and the car was going pretty well really. We improved it throughout the day, we made changes for every race.

“I don’t think that I could have done what I did in the first race if I had not been on the soft. In hindsight it was probably a good choice (to run the soft tyre in race one).”

Menu’s strong results came on his first trip to the Corby circuit, but he put his success down to staying out of trouble for the first time of the season.

“It’s been good, again you know it just show what we can do if we don’t have any problems,” continued Menu. “We didn’t have problems yesterday in free practice and qualifying and today in three races, it just shows what we can do. The car is still not right there with the fastest. So there’s still work to be done but we’re getting there slowly.”