Tough qualifying for joint series leader Rob Collard

Joint series leader Rob Collard will be relying on his overtaking prowess to make progress at Oulton Park today, after a tough qualifying session for the West Surrey Racing man left him down in 16th.

Carrying 66kg of ballast, Collard circulated towards the bottom end of the top 20 in practice and found himself in a similar situation in qualifying, albeit just 0.624s away from polesitter Colin Turkington.

Nevertheless, the 47-year-old was cautiously optimistic about his chances on raceday, at a circuit where he has traditionally excelled.

Collard said: “When you’re leading the championship, you certainly don’t want to be starting 16th, but with 66kg of success ballast on board, going only six tenths of a second from pole actually isn’t too bad – especially when you look at where some of the other championship front-runners are.

“The key area of the circuit is the uphill climb out of the chicane towards Druids as this is where carrying weight really hurts you. What gives me confidence is that this year we’ve always raced better than we’ve qualified. Tomorrow the aim is to make the top 10 in race one and hopefully use that as a springboard to some much stronger results in the others.”

West Surrey Racing team principal Dick Bennetts added: “Rob was always going to be affected by carrying 66kg here – especially in the uphill section out of the slow chicane – but with the competition being so close here, what was a fairly good lap time has him 16th. Overtaking is tough here, but Rob’s probably the best racer in the BTCC, so I’m confident he can go forwards tomorrow.”