Rob Collard wary of tyres following “surprising” victory

Rob Collard was delighted to get an unexpected win in the first race at Brands Hatch, but is now slightly nervous going in to race two with full ballast and running the soft tyre.

Collard’s West Surrey Racing BMW 125i shot to second off the line, storming past the three Team BMR Volkswagen CCs of Colin Turkington, Jason Plato and Aron Smith and slotting in behind new team-mate Andy Priaulx. The Hampshire-based driver then drove line astern with Priaulx until the three-time World Champion’s tyres began to drop off, gifting the lead to Collard.

“We got the car off the line quite nicely,” said Collard. “We had a little bit of a battle through lap one with Aron, we rubbed but going in to Druids I managed to keep the inside line and follow Andy. I sat quite comfortably behind him for about ten laps and I could see him starting to struggle so I took my opportunity to pounce when I saw him run wide in Clearways and I got up the inside.

“Andy was driving brilliantly and at that point you’d never push him too hard if you’re running 1-2. From there on I put qualifying laps in every single lap and luckily we didn’t make any mistakes, the car run perfectly and we managed to bring it home in the lead.”

Seeing how much his team-mate’s soft tyres dropped off in race one, Collard admitted that he was nervous going in to the second race, which he has chosen to run in race two.

“It’s going to be massive,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve driven with 75kg on the car so doesn’t matter what tyre we’re on, nobody knows what we’ve got to do. The fact I’ve chosen the soft tyre for race two doesn’t go in my favour but I didn’t expect to win that race to be honest.”

Collard will start from fourth for race two after setting the fourth fastest lap, but he says it was never on his mind as he was spending too much time concentrating on keeping the chasing pack behind him.

“To be honest you’re just driving to just do the best you can with that race,” concluded Collard. “Once I got in the lead I knew I had to really look after my tyres. That was what I was doing, I was setting very, very consistent laps and that’s where my focus was, it wasn’t about setting the quickest lap.”