The final round of this year's MSA Green Flag British Touring Car Championship take place at Donington Park this weekend and Tom Chilton is determined to end the season on a high
The focus for the last three races will be on who is going to be champion - James Thompson or Yvan Muller - but Tom has set his sights on stealing some of their glory and winning at least one of the three races this weekend.
"My best chance is going to be the first race," he said. "I hope I can qualify well; I’ll definitely be after a place on the front row. After being knocked off at Snetterton by Luke Hines, my Honda Civic is light. I’m very confident at Donington and with the pace we have shown in the last few races, I will be disappointed if I’m not very close to getting pole. After that I want to win the opening race."
If he can do that, then the second race with a 10th place start on the reversed grid and a fully ballasted car, becomes a damage limitation exercise. The aim is always to get as high a finishing position as possible and then with the ballast removed for the final race, attempt another podium finish. That is the plan, but you never know what will happen as Snetterton showed three weeks ago.
"That should have been a fantastic weekend. I got on the podium in the first race, didn’t lose too much in the second from a low grid position, and then I would have been on the podium again in the third if I hadn’t been taken out by Hines."
Very few drivers have had two podium finishes in one weekend this season, but it would have been no more than Tom deserved. The pace of his Honda Civic Type-R has come on significantly in the second half of the season, a result of hard work by Tom and the team, as he explains:
"It is quite hard for us being only a single car team. We can’t try so many different set ups in testing as a two or three car team can, but over the course of the year we have got stronger and stronger as we rack up more laps with the changes we have made. Everyone has been working flat out at the events to get to where we are and I want a win as much for the team as I do for myself."
Hopefully Donington will see that effort rewarded. Practice and qualifying will take place on Saturday with the three races on Sunday being shown live on ITV1 and Motors TV for Sky Digital subscribers.
