Patrick Watts happy to win but sorry for lack of excitement

Patrick Watts was pleased to take his first win of the season at the first race of the year, although he apologised to the fans for an “unexciting” display.

The Peugeot driver took to the lead from the start of the race, quickly passing pole-sitter Paul Smith in the Audi A4, who had made the most of the wet conditions, which suited his car to a tee. Watts then pulled a gap on the chasing pack of Stewart Whyte in the Honda Accord, Neil Smith in the Alfa Romeo and John Cleland in the Vauxhall Vectra.

“It’s quite good,” Watts told TouringCarTimes. “I think I was helped by Neil, with the wet qualifying and Neil getting to the front and holding everybody up. That car’s not quite so good in the dry and I think he held everybody up and I got a bit of a break. Unfortunately it maybe spoiled the race a bit for the spectators.”

Towards the end of the race Watts put in a slow lap, allowing Whyte to cut the gap from five seconds down to just over two seconds with two laps to go.

“Basically my dashboard disappeared and the car was starting to misfire a little bit,” explained Watts. “In fact the battery’s dead flat now, I think by putting the wipers on it saw the last of the battery, so I think I was quite lucky.”

The dry weather also meant the first showing for the new Hoosier slick tyre, and Watts was quick to praise the new rubber for the series.

“The Hoosiers were very good,” he told TouringCarTimes. “We weren’t quite sure as that’s the first time I’ve driven on them I thought I’d better just make a gap if I can and they’ll catch me up at the end of the race, but I wasn’t going to back off.”