Rory Butcher delighted by “incredible” Silverstone weekend

Rory Butcher admitted he was delighted with his results at Silverstone after the Speedworks driver enjoyed the best weekend of his BTCC career on track.

Following on from a tough outing at Croft a week earlier, the Toyota man would be a class apart on Saturday as he topped both free practice sessions and Q1 before then edging pole ahead of Tom Ingram in Q2.

Butcher overhauled Ingram to take victory in race one and then repeated the feat in race two despite carrying maximum ballast on his car – and despite late pressure from Josh Cook’s Honda.

The Scot then ended the weekend with 13th in race three to move up the championship standings into the top seven, and he was left pleased with his end results.

“It’s been an incredible weekend and topping all the times on Saturday and then converting it into two wins on Sunday was fantastic,” he said. “The first win was good, but we didn’t know how the car would handle the full ballast in race two and we were pleasantly surprised with how strong we were there.

“I think I take more satisfaction from race two because people expected us to win with the ballast we had in race one and the pace we had shown on Saturday, but the car handled the weight brilliantly.

“We seem to have the car in a window now where we turn up for FP1 and we aren’t far away – as we saw here and at Croft. If we can do it again at Donington Park, there is no reason why we can’t be in the mix come qualifying.”