I was full of confidence heading into the weekend after sealing my third win of the season in the final race at Rockingham a few weeks ago aboard the BMW Pirtek Racing BMW 125i M Sport. I was fired up to maximise my performance, even though the circuit has favoured front-wheel-drive cars over the past 10 years.
The opening free-practice session was unrepresentative as it was a drying session so anyone who went out late found themselves at the top of the timesheets. Still, it clarified that the weekend was going to be incredibly close, especially in qualifying, as I was only 0.5s adrift but down in 15th.
I was pretty happy with my increased pace in free practice 2 – on used tyres I was eighth fastest with a time only 0.4s off the benchmark.
This all meant, of course, that qualifying was going to be crucial. I tried slipstreaming tactics with my West Surrey Racing BMW team-mates Colin Turkington and Rob Collard so we could ‘tow’ each other round in turn to get quick times. People soon got wise to it so it didn’t really have the desired effect – Colin was P8, I took P16 and Rob was P22.