Andy Priaulx looking to improve raceday performance

Andy Priaulx is happy with his current form on his return to the BTCC, but has admitted he needs to step up his Sunday performances to match those of his Saturday pace.

The BMW driver has struggled with his race results, only taking second at Brands Hatch and one other top five result coming in race one at Thruxton. His other results have left him 11th in the championship going in to rounds 10, 11 and 12.

“I’m learning very fast that you have to finish those first two races otherwise your weekend’s nowhere, forget it,” Priaulx told TouringCarTimes. “You don’t seem to make any headway after that, I was quite surprised, like at Thruxton we made a good start and I thought we could cut through but it was all pretty equal after that. I’m enjoying it, I must say I’m enjoying the competitiveness of it, it is a very competitive series and I’ve got to learn.

“This is a new series for me, I’ve got to relearn the tracks and I’ve got to establish myself as a British Touring Car driver, these guys have cut a groove around here for twenty years. You take them out of here and put them in a GT car and race with me around Imola I don’t think it’d be quite the same. I’m pretty happy where I’m at, I’m pretty strong in qualifying and I’ve just got to make sure I turn my race weekends in to something really good.”

Priaulx was near the top of the time sheets in FP1 and FP2 at Oulton Park, capping the speed off with third place in qualifying, less than a tenth of a second behind pole sitter Jason Plato.

“I’d like to see us a bit further ahead than we are, we’ve got a bit of weight,” continued Priaulx. “Jason’s got a bit of weight and I know our car wouldn’t be where it is without that ballast on board. I’m reasonably happy, I still think we’ve got to make some progress. I think qualifying is very important here. I don’t think I’ve raced here before – maybe I did back in 2000-whenever it was – but I think the track’s very narrow so that’s going to make it very easy to defend. I saw that last year with Rob Austin, he had a slower car than Plato but was able to keep him behind the whole race.”

Last year at Oulton Park saw a dominant performance from Colin Turkington in the West Surrey Racing BMW, but Priaulx is not reading much in to the 2014 results owing to the switch from the International layout to the Island layout.

“Last year didn’t have the hairpin and we’ve got the long first gear there which doesn’t help,” he told TouringCarTimes. “We’re a bit low on engine revs there and it’s a big drag up the hill, obviously with the fast left hand kink, shell hairpin and the two chicanes that was more suited to the BMW package. You’ve got three very strong VWs, a couple of strong Hondas and a couple of really strong Triple Eight MGs, I know Triple Eight was there last year and the VWs have taken that step, we’ve got to take that step to be challenging for regular race wins, that’s what makes a championship winning campaign.”