Team BKR unsure on qualifying chances

Team BKR Nico Ferrari admitted he was unsure what to expect from qualifying for the latest rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship despite Aron Smith emerging as one of the pacesetters during free practice at Oulton Park.

Smith was second quickest in the opening 40 minute session behind the Toyota of Tom Ingram and then ended the second session third quickest, despite improving his time to a best of 1min 26.013secs – little more than a tenth of a second away from his qualifying performance last year.

The practice pace was in stark contrast to the on-track performance seen last time out at Thruxton, where the first year team struggled for results and failed to score a point, although team boss Ferrari said it was important not to get too carried away.

“We needed some good sessions like that after Thruxton, but we have to remember it’s only practice,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that some of the cars running the RML parts have some tricks they can pull and haven’t shown their full hand yet, so we need to see what happens with them in qualifying.

“In terms of our car, we’ve clearly got some good pace but I’m not sure how much we have up our sleeve and what more we have in terms of outright performance. At both Brands Hatch and Donington Park, we had a few options in terms of set-up from the data we had available but here, our previous data doesn’t have those variations.

“We’ll take a look at things and see what we can do before qualifying, but it may come down to Aron and what he can find on track to get those few extra tenths.”

Smith himself agreed that any time to be found was likely to come from him on track, with at least a few tenths remaining on the table going into qualifying.

“The car is pretty much on point but I know there are a few places where I can find time,” he said. “I definitely think we can go a few tenths of a second quicker than we have been so far but I’m not expecting huge improvements in qualifying.

“Saying that, FP2 here is usually a pretty good indication of what to expect from qualifying round here, so hopefully we’ll be towards the sharp end.”