Jake Hill surprised by front row slot

Jake Hill admitted he was surprised to break onto the front row of the grid for the latest rounds of the BTCC season after emerging as the biggest threat to the Honda drivers at Thruxton.

The FK8 Civic Type R would be the car to beat across free practice and qualifying in Hampshire, with Josh Cook and Gordon Shedden topping practice and Dan Rowbottom then securing a second pole of the campaign.

Hill however would run Rowbottom close in qualifying to end up less than a tenth of a second away from pole himself, although second on the grid remained his best result of the campaign to date in his MB Motorsport-run Focus.

“I didn’t think a front row would be on because the Hondas are rapid round here, and they have shown it again in practice,” he said. “It’s nice to get in amongst them but frustrating at the same time as we held pole for a while before Dan got me at the end.

“Saying that, I can here feeling good as the car was fantastic in round one and we ended up leading the championship after that weekend. Even with the weight we now have in the car, I feel confident and we did a good race run in FP2, so I’m confident we can be right in the podium fight.

“Hopefully we can have a strong weekend and outscore Ash [Sutton] and get back into the title fight.”