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15 August 2009.../VX Racing has travelled to Knockhill in Scotland for the seventh round of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship this weekend. In today’s qualifying session the trio of VX Racing drivers were unable to make the most of the demanding circuit with an uncharacteristic lack of pace, but they expect to turn their fortunes around for tomorrow’s races. With the top 14 drivers separated by less than a second, it was one of the most closely fought qualifying sessions of the season so far.
Matt Neal wrung seventh quickest lap out of his car for a fourth row slot in tomorrow’s first race. Andrew Jordan will be alongside him after posting the eighth fastest time, even taking to two wheels in his endeavour to post a strong lap time. Fabrizio Giovanardi was also putting all his efforts into producing the lap needed for a strong grid slot, but was disappointed to finish 11th fastest.
The first practice session of the weekend took place in steady rain and although the VX Racing Vauxhall performs well in these conditions, the Chevrolets and BMWs proved equally as quick. Neal produced the best wet session lap time of the Vauxhalls, fourth fastest. In the second session, with the rain having stopped, but the track remaining damp, Neal continued to lead the VX Racing assault with third fastest lap. Giovanardi was back in sixth and Jordan finished the session in ninth. However all three drivers were unconcerned with practice times as the track conditions kept changing throughout the sessions.
The Knockhill qualifying session favoured the local racers with both Scottish BTCC drivers showing their command of the tight, tricky track and finishing with top three lap times. Neal showed early form in the 40 minutes grid setting session, lying third fastest after his first two runs, but dropped to seventh when his main rivals improved and he was unable to make further progress. Giovanardi ran within in the top ten for much of the session, but struggled to improve and dropped back to 11th after the final run. Jordan had languished outside of the top ten after his first two runs, but was then able to track Giovanardi through a lap and leap up the order to finish close behind Neal with eighth fastest time of the session.
Neal explains, “At the beginning of the session I thought we were on it and had the pace to be up there, but later I started to struggle and we seemed to get slower. As the track came in, we seemed to lose out and drop off the pace. My fastest lap was one where I had to avoid some tyres that had come loose and were in the middle of the chicane, so I thought I’d be okay and be able to improve with fresh tyres, but that wasn’t the case. We’ve got some work to do for tomorrow and I expect we can turn this around.”
Giovanardi adds, “It’s difficult to pinpoint the reasons why we are so far off our usual pace. I don’t think we had enough temperature in the tyres and that’s part of the problem. At the beginning of the season we had the car working well in cooler conditions, then in the last few weekends we’ve got the car working for the hotter weather, now we’re back to cooler conditions and maybe we need to bring the car back too, but we just didn’t get it there today. We didn’t do anything drastic, but we just need to make some more changes to accommodate the track conditions.”
Jordan said of his session, “We struggled with a general imbalance from corner to corner and were really not on the pace in the first part of the session. We managed to hang on the back of Fabrizio and get up to eighth which was better, but we still struggled. We were held up by John George on our final lap which was annoying, but at least we’re second of the three Vauxhalls and in the top ten. We definitely need to look at the data and make some changes for tomorrow. “
