Rory Butcher “buzzing” after winning start

Rory Butcher admitted he was left “buzzing” by the opening weekend of the BTCC season after securing his maiden victory in the series at Brands Hatch.

Butcher went into the weekend in confident mood at the wheel of his Cobra Sport AmD-run Honda Civic Type R after a solid pre-season, and qualified eleventh on the grid for the opening race.

Electing to run wet tyres didn’t stop Butcher from fighting for a top ten finish in the race before he managed to hold on on the soft tyre to take eighth in race two.

Starting from the second row of the grid for race three as a result of the reverse grid draw, Butcher took advantage of a clash between Matt Neal and Stephen Jelley to move up to second spot and then found himself inheriting a maiden win when Tom Chilton was hit with a post-race penalty.

Not only was it a maiden victory for the Scot, it was also the first time that the AmD squad had won in the series.

“It isn’t the way that you want to win a race, but you need a bit of luck in the BTCC sometimes and I’ll certainly take it,” he said. “I’m so pleased to be the person who gives the AmD team its first win, and it’s an amazing feeling to be able to call myself a BTCC race winner.

“I’m delighted with the weekend as a whole as we battled back from qualifying. I stayed calm and tried to progress in each race, and I knew that we could take advantage of it we had the chance to be near the front.

“I can’t thank the team enough and we showed strong pace in each race in different conditions. The only mistake was not to roll the dice on the tyres in race one, but it’s a nice feeling to have some silverware and I’m buzzing about the way things have gone.”