Rob Collard: Our advantage isn’t what it was

Rob Collard insists that new regulations in the BTCC this season have negated some of the advantage that rear-wheel drive cars have enjoyed at certain circuits on the calendar – despite his WSR team winning twice at Oulton Park.

The Cheshire circuit, and Croft next weekend, have traditionally been circuits where rear-wheel drive cars have been the ones to beat – winning four of the six races across the two meetings for the past four seasons.

That includes a WSR hat-trick back in 2015, with Collard heading a BMW 1–2–3 in the final race of the weekend.

However, new rules this season mean that rear-wheel-drive cars are running at a base weight that is 30kg greater than front-wheel-drive, with Collard admitting that it was having an impact.

“The extra 30kg has affected us at certain tracks at certain times,” he said. “If you compare the final race this weekend to twelve months ago, I was almost on maximum ballast compared to the same race because of the additional weight we have to carry.

“It’s a big hit for us to take and as much as we dictated the pace in race three, it is hard to overtake when you find yourself in the pack with that extra weight.

“Oulton Park and Croft have always been good tracks for rear-wheel-drive, especially with WSR, but our advantages aren’t as big at certain tracks as people think.”

Collard’s first win of the year at Oulton Park was his first podium since the heavy accident he suffered at Silverstone last year; an accident he admitted had affected him more than he realised.

“It’s massively important to have got a win,” he said. “Coming off the back of that big crash at Silverstone 2017 probably affected me a bit more than I realised and at the start of the season getting into the car, it wasn’t quite there.

“At Donington Park in race three we were very competitive and nearly got a podium. But at Thruxton it just seemed to go a bit wayward again but we’ve been strong all weekend here, in qualifying and all three races. We’re here to score points and not take too many chances and that’s what we’ve done.

“We took a calculated gamble in race two to stay behind Cole for the reverse grid and the gamble paid off. Once I got it off the line, twice, in the final race, I just had to stroke it home.”