Tom Chilton enjoyed a strong weekend in the 2011 Dunlop British Touring Car Championship today, following two fourth places in race one and two at the Donington Park Circuit. The reigning Independents’ Champion was amongst the front runners throughout qualifying and the first two races, and only saw his weekend marred in the final race, when he was put in the gravel through a chain reaction of accidents on lap one.

Tom started his day with a competitive fifth place in race one, which later turned into fourth when third placed man Gordon Shedden was excluded from the race due to a technical infringement.

The 26 year-old added another strong finish to his record in race two, with a storming fourth place which nearly produced a podium as Tom put championship leader Matt Neal under intense pressure for third.

Having made further improvements to his car, Tom looked strong ahead of his third race of the weekend. The Team Aon man had little chance to show the progress he had made however, after Matt Jackson made contact with James Nash, which sent Nash into Tom and consequently Tom into Tom Onslow-Cole. The result was Chilton and Onslow-Cole finishing their race in the gravel at the Old Hairpin.

Despite the disappointment of the last race, Chilton was able to take away some positives, “We’ve had an encouraging weekend – essentially we were getting faster all weekend. We’re still in the early stages of developing the car, but the good news is that in outright speed, we’re already quicker than the old Ford Focus which has the benefit of several seasons of development.

“Two fourth places in race one and two are good results for us, but I’m really disappointed that we didn’t get the chance to fight for the win in race three. I made a really good start, but then there was a chain of events, after Matt [Jackson] hit James [Nash] who then nudged me off and I couldn’t help but hit Tom Onslow Cole as well. It’s so close at the moment in the standings, that a third place - which was more than possible this afternoon - would have left us fourth in the standings.

“We’re made another big step forward with the car this weekend. We had really good corner grip and balance, but the braking wasn’t quite right in qualifying. We managed to change something on the car today which sorted that out and gave us an even better car for racing. It’s just a pity that that hard work by the team wasn’t rewarded in race three and instead we have a quite badly damaged car.”

The 2011 BTCC season continues in two weeks time, at the Thruxton circuit in Hampshire – the fastest track on the BTCC calendar.