Motorbase: “We’d be in the title fight if we were here at the start”

Motorbase Performance’s David Bartrum believes Mat Jackson would be firmly in the BTCC title battle had his team raced in the series for the whole of 2015.

Bartrum’s squad took the decision to sit out the opening half of the season due to well-documented financial issues following the withdrawal of title sponsor Airwaves at the end of last season.

But after returning with their new Ford EcoBoost engine for the second half of this year, Jackson followed up his strong showing at Knockhill with a win and a second place in the Ford Focus ST at Rockingham.

A bullish Bartrum is also hopeful of a good show at the final two rounds at Silverstone and Brands Hatch GP, two historically strong circuits for Motorbase.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Bartrum said: “When we came back at Snetterton it was clearly a lot tougher than we thought it was going to be. We needed that weekend to get back in the groove and we didn’t feel part of things.

“We’ve progressed very quickly and I do feel now we can fight anyone. Silverstone I’m hoping we’ll be strong and Brands I know we’ll be strong. The last two should suit what we’re trying to do – get the car and team established again and get back on the podium.

“I would have hated having a year out, coming back next year and trying to do what we’re doing now. You look at people like Andrew Jordan – he’s nowhere at the moment, and he’s a great driver. So we can’t be doing that badly.

“I guess we’re going to have an impact on the championship now. People say ‘how do you feel about taking points off people’ and I’m happy to say, if we’d been here from the beginning, we’d be fighting for the championship.

“We’ve done them a favour – we’ve let them off the hook! It’s got to be our goal to refine what we’ve got and come back next year even stronger.”

Bartrum also reflected on a strong Rockingham weekend, and was counting his blessings after Jackson picked up a puncture near the end of the first race.

“We’ve been taking camber off all weekend,” he said. “We had a puncture in race one – Mat did the last lap-and-a-half with a puncture and I don’t know how he did it! It was a proper tyre failure.

“It’s a characteristic of this circuit. Initially he failed the ride height, but we said ‘look at it again with another wheel on’ and they retested it.”

Although he was delighted with the victory, the performance of the Ford Focus ST with maximum ballast on board gave Bartrum the most satisfaction.

He said: “The pole was fantastic, I loved every minute of that. We had no weight in the car for race one and it was a nice win to have.

“But when you go into the second race with 75kg, and you get a second place, and you went forward, that meant more.

“That probably meant more to me than anything, the fact that we could hold our own with 75kg.

“You’re not going to get credibility racing in this series now unless you can handle the weight on your car. I think that was the crucial thing, as this [Rockingham] has got every aspect of a pain-in-the-arse circuit.”