Sam Tordoff back in the points lead after “great weekend” at Knockhill
West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff leads Knockhill back in the lead of the championship after a mare of a weekend for team-mate Rob Collard, but while the Yorkshireman didn’t grace the top step of the podium at one of the BMW’s strongest circuits, he’s happy with the generous points haul which sees him leave with a nine-point lead over Honda’s Matt Neal.
“It’s panned out beautifully, I think that’s our best weekend since Oulton Park when we had the amazing win, win and second,” said Tordoff to TouringCarTimes. “It’s a great points haul and I’ve regained the lead and extended it a little. The important thing was to come here and maximise with what the BMW car would give us around this circuit, and I think we have.
Tordoff finished the first race in fifth, then endured a race-long battle with Team BMR Subaru’s Jason Plato in Race 2 for the win, but lost out to championship rival Matt Neal in the closing stages, while in Race 3 he was caught in an offensive and defensive drive, fighting Motorbase’s Mat Jackson for the lead while fending off Plato again for another second-place finish.
“The car is very good around here so it carries the weight well as well, and that’s a massive help. Whilst we weren’t the quickest with the weight on, we were certainly still in the race which is important as sometimes you can go backwards very quickly with the weight on,” he said.
On the subject of driving standards, which reared its head again after a number of mid-field incidents, and on top of that one involving his team-mate Collard and Subaru’s Colin Turkington in Race 3, the BMW driver was happy to have missed that particular kind of action on Sunday.
“Knockhill always makes for close racing and contact is inevitable around here, and it was probably a bit unfortunate we came here after the shenanigans at Snetterton as it was always going to be a crash fest,” he said. “But at the front you can see most of us can drive and race and not crash into each other. The same is not to be said for the last half of the field, but to be honest that’s not been my concern today, I’m grateful that I’ve been far ahead of the action.”
