Colin Turkington: Triple top ten “a good start”

Colin Turkington insisted that three top ten finishes was a ‘good start’ to his BTCC campaign after the new season kicked off at Thruxton.

The West Surrey Racing driver overcame back pain throughout Saturday to qualify on the second row of the grid at the high-speed Hampshire circuit, although his race would be affected by a penalty in race one for contact with Ash Sutton on the opening lap.

That resulted in Turkington dropping to tenth place in the results before he fought back to seventh in race two, with the mixed conditions in race three seeing him finish in sixth spot.

It means he ends the opening weekend of the year sitting seventh in the standings.

“When you weigh up the weekend with the number of incidents, penalties, and challenging weather, three top ten scores is a good result,” he said. “Given the level of competition, increased success ballast and the return of option tyres, it will be very difficult to secure big point hauls like we saw in 2020.

“The season opener always throws out a few curve balls, and I was expecting a fierce challenge this year. You can never predict who is going to be at the sharp end and without the time penalty in race one, I think we had the pace. I try to just keep on looking at the bigger picture and where we can improve.

“We have a few weeks up our sleeve ahead of Snetterton, one of our stronger tracks last year, so I’m looking forward to hunting out some podiums.”