Photo: PSP Images

Sam Tordoff believes there’s more to come from WSR BMW

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Sam Tordoff is eyeing the front row in qualifying after setting the fastest time in FP2 despite a lap that he admits “wasn’t that great”.

The West Surrey Racing driver set the top time in the afternoon practice session of 48.132 by just over one tenth of a second over second placed Aron Smith in the final few minutes of FP2.

Despite the pace, however, Tordoff feels there is more left in the tank after stating that his fastest lap could have been better still.

“The car is generally very good,” Tordoff told TouringCarTimes. “I was surprised to go that quick to be honest and I was surprised that no one else didn’t because it wasn’t a great lap, but P1’s P1 at the end of the day. All the things we’ve worked on over the winter seem to be gathering momentum now, I think we’ve made real strides in that department. You might not see it here but I think you’ll really see it at tracks to come, generally speaking a very good morning.”

The opening round of 2016 sees the RML components have its first fully fledged race meeting after being used on one car as a test in the final round of 2015. The new parts have made a huge change to the car handles, according to Tordoff, with the team having to change the way they set their cars up based on the same time 12 months ago.

“The car reacts very differently, particularly to change,” explained Tordoff. “We’re running it completely differently to how we ran it before, it seems to be working well and I think generally everyone’s running quicker than last year. We’re already three tenths faster than the pole time last year and hopefully we can dip into the 47s in qualifying.”

Following the strong pace, Tordoff is now aiming to continue his form into qualifying and hopefully leave Brands Hatch with a one point lead in the championship by taking the bonus point on offer for pole position.

“It would be nice to go home tonight leading the championship by a point but whatever happens we need to be near the front and have three good races tomorrow and get ourselves off to a good start,” he concluded.