Andy Priaulx confident after soft tyre hurt first race

Andy Priaulx is confident he can make his way back to the top of the grid after struggling with the soft tyres in the opening race of the British Touring Car season.

Priaulx, who put his BMW 125i on pole position, elected to run the softer rubber in the first of the three races while the car had no ballast at all, in a bid to reduce the amount of tyre wear. However, the second half of the race saw a notable drop-off on pace from the West Surrey Racing machine, dropping Priaulx from the lead down to ninth by the time the chequered flag flew.

“The soft tyre definitely hurt me,” Priaulx told TouringCarTimes. “It was always going to be a gamble but I thought it would be best to go for it while the car was light, so I’m more optimistic now for the next races on the hard tyre.”

Priaulx lost the lead to team-mate Rob Collard on lap 14 when the Guernseyman ran wide on the exit of Clearways, although he put up no real fight to his team-mate, or the pair of BMR cars that had caught on to the end of the BMW brace.

“I pulled a gap but then I saw the tyre was going off so I got pulled back in to them. It was just about finishing then really and just getting some points.”

The new West Surrey Racing driver set the second fastest lap while he still had a decent set of rubber underneath him, so will start race two from the front row of the grid, as he did in race one. Priaulx will be hoping to make a better start for the second encounter after bogging down off the line, only just managing to hold his lead from Collard before diving in to Paddock Hill Bend.

“I bogged down off the line in race one but I’m confident I can get to the front, I’ll definitely have a go.”