Tom’s race weekend started and finished on high notes with a sensational pole position on Saturday and a battling drive to 4th place in the final race on Sunday. In between though it was a frustrating time in Yorkshire…….
The latest rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Croft had promised much for Tom and Team Aon and at times the potential was realised. But it was a difficult process and patience was required after tyre problems dropped him to 18th place in the day’s first race. From that frustrating beginning Tom progressed to 11th and finally 4th place in the races, but that wasn’t what he had expected after being fastest in Saturday morning’s practice session and then securing pole position later that afternoon.
Tom described his experience in qualifying as the luckiest of his career. He locked up the brakes on his first run with new tyres, hitting the barrier and as he explained, was almost eliminated on the spot;
“I braked too late for the first corner and locked up, straight across the gravel and nudged the tyre wall. It could have been worse, but the impact was light; only a bit of panel damage really, but the major problem was getting out of the gravel trap. If I couldn’t have got it out, that would have been my session over and I would have had to start from the back of the grid. Luckily for me, I could just move the car and little by little cleared the gravel trap and got back to the pits.”
Rapid work by the Team Aon mechanics repaired the damage to his Ford Focus and they managed to send Tom out with another set of tyres with just minutes of the session remaining. The next couple of laps were masterful from Tom, smashing the qualifying record and claiming his 3rd pole of the season.
Tom’s high hopes for a good result in the day’s first race were thwarted as excessive tyre degradation wiped out the advantage he had gained on Saturday. After being jumped off the line by Gordon Shedden, Tom settled into 2nd place and held that position for the first few laps. But it wasn’t to last as Tom explained;
“I knew after a few laps I was going to struggle as the tyres were going off rapidly. First Collard came by me easily and then it didn’t matter what I tried or how hard I defended, I was a sitting duck. Eventually it got so bad I had to make a pit-stop for new front tyres. It would have been too dangerous to try and carry on with the original rubber, but of course, after the pit-stop I was well down the field.”
Starting 18th on the grid for race two presented Tom with an awful lot to do. The target was to try and get into the top ten and take advantage of the reverse grid for the final race. It started well enough, a great start and opening laps lifted Tom to 13th and by half-distance he was 10th. However, the same issues that had limited his performance in the earlier race struck again – not as badly – but enough to make him vulnerable again at the end of the race and he couldn’t hang on to the position. He crossed the line 11th and any chance of the reverse grid draw was gone.
Far from disheartened and with a revised set-up on his Focus ST, Tom immediately set about getting something from the weekend in the day’s final race. Another great start and he was in the thick of the action over the opening laps. He benefited from some early retirements, but it was clear the Focus was now handling better and the previous tyre degradation didn’t affect him this time. He battled hard all the way and through his own efforts and the misfortune of others, crossed the line in 4th place.
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