Sam Tordoff: “The win is a massive relief”

Sam Tordoff admitted it was a massive relief to take his first win of the season after a strong weekend on track as the BTCC headed for Silverstone.

The Motorbase driver had failed to make it onto the podium since returning to the series at the start of the campaign but produced a strong run on the opening race to lead from start to finish for a first victory since Rockingham 2016.

Tordoff followed it up with a podium in the second race despite the additional weight on his Ford Focus RS and then held on to take 14th despite running the hard tyre in race three – something he admitted he wasn’t keen to run again next year.

“To get the win is a massive monkey off my back but it started with the pole position really as that was something else that was overdue,” he said. “We can be thrilled with pole, a win and a podium with weight onboard over the course of this weekend and the only downside was race three.

“To be fair, we knew what was coming on the hard tyre because it has been terrible and I don’t even know why we run it at Silverstone because it isn’t a track that suits the hard; particularly after the resurfacing work that has been carried out. I think when we come back next year, we have to have the soft tyre as the option.

“That aside, to have the win again is great as I started to wonder if it would happen as the races were running out. We know that we haven’t delivered this season through no fault of our own as the car is quick, as Tom has shown in the standings. We’ve just had so many things that we couldn’t control that gave gone wrong.

“Hopefully we can now go to Brands Hatch and have another good weekend to end the season – and with no weight, we really should be pushing for pole and the race one win at least.”