Tom Chilton confident of strong Motorbase challenge

Tom Chilton says he is keen to build on the strong weekend he enjoyed at Oulton Park when the BTCC heads for Croft for the fifth round of the year.

The former WTCC Independents’ champion enjoyed his strongest outing of the year in Cheshire two weeks ago, with a brace of podium finishes being the first for both him and the Motorbase Performance team.

It means the 33-year-old now sits eighth in the championship standings and is also well placed in the Independents’ title race – just 20 points down on leader Jack Goff.

With Croft having been the scene of Motorbase’s only victory of the 2017 season, Chilton will hope to be able to fight at the front again this time around and said he was confident that the Focus RS would be a contender at the front.

“After such a great weekend at Oulton Park, I’m really looking forward to Croft,” he said. “The car is obviously performing really well and we’re back where we should be. I’m hoping that we can keep the ball rolling into a good weekend at Croft.

“Croft is a great circuit. It has quite unusual corners with the way you are braking and turning from high speed. You’ve got to control the car on the brake, so it is very challenging.

“The championship is so close at the moment that I think we could see people making a few mistakes. I’m hoping with our experience we’ll be there to pick up the points. We’re carrying 21kg into qualifying which really equates to two tenths.

“That can be the difference between the top 13 on the gird, so we have a big job to do. Its 100 per cent a rear wheel drive circuit but I still think we’ll be very strong this weekend.”