Mat Jackson: “It’s the best result we could’ve hoped for”

Mat Jackson was delighted to come away with the first win of the Donington Park weekend, having made a lightning start to jump both Triple Eight Racing MGs.

Starting from third Jackson said he had hoped to jump one of the two MG6s, but was not expecting to find himself leading on the run in to Redgate.

“It’s the best result that we could’ve hoped for, we set out for it and to come away with it is great,” Jackson told TouringCarTimes. “It got a bit tight at the start off the line, I kind of had a sneaky feeling Ash would fluff the start off the line, which he did, but not to the amount that he did. I thought we might get one off the line into Redgate but to get the two is fantastic. It was great, they were so fast in the early laps and he was all over the back of us, but once the rear came in we Foxtrot-Oscar.”

Having taken the lead off the line, Jackson never looked back, holding the fast charging Josh Cook behind him despite the MG being extremely quick after the first safety car period.

“We had the pace, they’re always the best races when we have the pace to control. There was no point risking a tyre failure by mullering the kerbs, I just kept an eye on where Josh was and just controlled it. The safety car at the end could have put a spanner in the works but it was a great result. “

Jackson now takes a full 75kgs of ballast in to race two, but will start from first on the grid. The Motorbase team has experience from running with the full ballast after their brilliant form at the tail-end of 2015, but Jackson was quick to play down their chances, having never run that level of ballast on the new RML components.

“We’ve got to be mindful of the championship. We’ve got 75kgs, we’ll go off the line and give it the best we’ve got. We haven’t done it on the new kit with RML configuration yet. We’ll see, it’s not going to be easy but we need to be picking up points, that’s the plan.”