America’s Robb Holland makes the last of his three appearances with Handy Motorsport in the 2015 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Rockingham in Northamptonshire next weekend, 5th/6th September, where the partnership is aiming for its strongest outing of the year. Having equaled his previous career-best of 14th position overall on his BTCC return with the Swindon team at Snetterton in Norfolk earlier this month, Holland delivered another series of strong performances at the wheel of Handy’s Toyota Avensis last weekend at Knockhill in Scotland.
With five Independents Trophy points scores from the first six of his nine races, the 47-year-old now prepares to head to Rockingham for his final outing of the BTCC season determined to try and sign-off his three event deal on a real high.
Team principal Simon Belcher, who will make a return to the driving seat of the Webb Garden Power Equipment and KÄRCHER backed car for the final two race meetings of the year at Silverstone and Brands Hatch, says the squad has made excellent steps over the last two events with Holland’s input and sees no reason why the forward momentum cannot continue at Rockingham.
“Knockhill, and Snetterton before that, went very well and we’re all fully focused on making even more progress next weekend”, said Belcher, “It’s been fantastic working with Robb over the last couple of rounds, he fitted in with the team straight away and we’ve all been making some very positive steps.
“Last weekend was another strong performance, all three races went well and we’re very happy with the set-up we have now for the race car. In qualifying we still need to extract some more pace and performance, that’s one of the key aims for Rockingham as we know Robb will be able to race well in the mid-pack if he can start a bit higher up the order.”
As well as achieving three consistently solid points results in Scotland last weekend, Holland also gained the most places across the trio of contests. Encouragingly too, Knockhill is the circuit the Handy racer was looking forward to the least – so everything is well placed for a strong conclusion to his involvement in the 2015 championship.
“Rockingham should suit the car quite well, last year in our first season in the BTCC we had a pretty good run there and we know we’re in better shape with the car 12 months on”, added Belcher, “Obviously I’m looking forward to being back out there for the final two events, but we will be sad to see Robb’s involvement come to an end next Sunday – he’s been a pleasure to work with.”
Opening practice for the BTCC at Rockingham will commence at 09.25 on Saturday, 5th September, with session two following at 12.40 ahead of qualifying at 15.40 which will be streamed live online at the www.itv.com/btcc website.
On Sunday, 6th September, round 22 will start just after 11.35 with round 23 set to begin around 13.50 and round 24 scheduled to get underway at 16.40 – live coverage of the BTCC action will be screened on ITV4 and ITV4 HD.
2015 Dunlop MSA BTCC HiQ Teams Championship (after Rd21): 13th Handy Motorsport, 5pts
2015 Dunlop MSA BTCC Independents Team Trophy (after Rd21): 8th Handy Motorsport, 112pts
