Dave Newsham straight into the top ten on his BTCC return

Power Maxed Racing’s Dave Newsham was delighted to put the Chevrolet Cruze into the top ten as he made a one-off appearance, standing in for Kelvin Fletcher this weekend at Knockhill.

The two-time BTCC race winner put the Cruze tenth on the grid, just under half a second behind the pole time of Team BMR Subaru driver Jason Plato, despite no testing or time to familiarise himself with the Chevrolet, which is now running with RML running gear instead of GPRM components this year.

“I was hoping for a top ten to be fair. It’s so tight though, a tenth costs you three of four rows, so I’m very happy with that,” said Newsham to TouringCarTimes.

“The car’s quite different, it’s very nice to drive, but it requires a bit of a different technique, but (team-mate) Hunter (Abbott)’s given me some good data to look at and we got there.”

Newsham has stood back from the BTCC this year after racing in the championship full-time since 2011, but has continued his relationship with Adam Weaver’s Power Maxed Racing team in the British Rallycross Championship in a Ford Fiesta.

“I’ve been doing British Rallycross with the Power Maxed team this year so I’ve not really left,” he added. “This is just a one-off opportunity and it’s my home track so I couldn’t turn it down, the key is to just enjoy the three races tomorrow.”