Rob Collard vows to keep fighting despite Rockingham frustration

Rob Collard has vowed to keep fighting in his bid to secure a first BTCC title despite seeing his championship hopes take a huge hit during the weekend at Rockingham.

The Team BMW driver had gone into the eighth meeting of the season sitting 17 points behind team-mate Colin Turkington in the standings, but failed to score for the first time this season in two of the three races to slip 56 points adrift of new leader Ash Sutton.

Having crossed the line 17th in race one, Collard picked up an eighth place finish in race two having spent most of the race trying to get ahead of fellow WSR man Andrew Jordan.

Just missing out on the reverse grid draw, Collard looked set to score solid points in race three until contact from Jack Goff’s Honda on the run from Tarzan to the Brook chicane on lap 13 saw him spin into the barriers and out of the race.

“Anything is still possible but it’s going to be hard to try and win the championship now,” he said. “We are still going to be pushing hard for the top three in the standings, but I won’t give up as things can change so quickly in this series.

“This weekend has been frustrating as we were out of position in qualifying and then struggled with the hard tyre in the opening race. The car was amazing in race two and I was quicker than Andrew who defended throughout the race and then got the reverse grid – which pretty much summed up my weekend.

“In race three, I felt I made a good move on Goff at Tarzan and then on the straight he just turned me into the wall. You have to look at the video to see what but it’s frustrating that we had the pace in the car to get a good result.

“Of course, you don’t have an automatic right to overtake a slower car but some people need to realise when to concede the place. When you make a move on someone, they seem to want to just turn across you when you are half way alongside them; the driving standards are getting worse.”

Goff for his part took an alternative view of the incident, with his Eurotech Racing Honda having been able to continue.

“I was on the inside [for the chicane] and he kept coming across to the left,” he said. “I think he misjudged it slightly, and turned himself around the front of my car. I think he probably sees it differently, but I don’t think he’s seen the footage back yet.

“When he does he’ll see I didn’t move my car at all, I kept my car straight and on the inside, and he just came across me.”