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Collard on the charge
June 04, 2009
British Touring Cars Championship
ROB Collard, who lives in Eversley, turned in one of the best drives of the 2009 HiQ MSA Touring Car Championship season as Airwaves BMW enjoyed a fine weekend at Oulton Park.
In the third race of the day the Hampshireman made up an incredible 16 places – going from 20th to fourth – as he carved his way through the field at the sun-soaked Cheshire circuit.
The final fling through the field was some consolation for Collard, who had to settle for a ninth-placed finish in the first race and retired from the second one before it began, due to broken propshaft.
Earlier, in race 1, Collard’s Airwaves BMW team-mate, Jonny Adam, had stayed cool in the baking heat to finish third, and pick up the second podium of his BTCC career.
At the end of the Oulton Park action, Airwaves BMW had maintained third place overall in the BTCC championship, and are only one point off top spot in the independents’ standings.
In the overall standings, VX Racing are the runaway leaders, on 216, with Airwaves in third on 112 points, 30 adrift of Team RAC.
The independents’ race is tighter between the two; RAC lead Airwaves by just that one point.
Collard is fifth in the overall driver standings, on 78 points, some way short of leader Matt Neal, who has 11 points. Jason Plato is one place above Collard, on 87 points.
Plato leads Collard, in third, by 14 points in the independent drivers’ championship, which is led, on 126 points, by Colin Turkington.
Collard had started ninth on the grid after a slightly frustrating outing in qualifying on Saturday. Collard came to Oulton Park full of confidence after his win at Donington but he struggled with tyre issues during his hot laps and had to settle for a slot on row five. Title-rival Neal started beside him.
The hugely competitive nature of the HiQ MSA Touring Car Championship was underlined by the fact that, in the field of 21 competitors, the top 12 on the grid were separated by less than one second in qualifying.
“I’m a little disappointed with my qualifying session; ninth is not where I wanted to be,” said Collard, who made his BTCC debut at Oulton, almost nine years ago to the day, on May 29 2000.
“The car felt really good in practice and, after my first run, I think I was sitting about fourth. However, on my next run I locked up into a corner early on and flat-spotted the tyres, so I had to come in for another change.
“Unfortunately it appears that one of the tyres that went on then had a slight puncture and was gradually losing pressure. That made the car very difficult to drive and I just couldn’t get a good balance.”
On Sunday, the temperature soared as the cars lined up on the grid for the first race of the day. Adam made an excellent start from fifth, moving into fourth, and Collard also got away well, moving up from ninth to seventh by the end of the first lap.
But Collard struggled to find his rhythm after that and dropped back to 11th as the competition hotted up among the midfield runners.
On lap 12 he tangled with the Vauxhall of Andy Jordan but came off best and moved into tenth.
He benefited again when Matt Jackson, who was third, suffered a puncture late in the race, elevating Collard to his original starting position of ninth. Jackson’s loss was also Adam’s gain, as the Airwaves BMW man was promoted from fourth to third and collected the second BTCC podium of his career.
The drama in race two began early for the Airwaves BMW team, as Collard suffered from a broken propshaft on the warm-up lap and was forced to retire to the pits before the race began.
Adam finished fifth, after a battle royal with Neal and Plato, who just finished ahead of him.
Race three turned out to be one of the most exciting BTCC races Airwaves BMW has ever contested.
Having started third Jonny Adam’s hopes of securing a second successive podium were dashed early on as he spun following contact from Neal’s Vauxhall, dropping the Airwaves BMW driver all the way back to 11th.
At the same time team-mate Collard was going in the other direction, blasting through from second-last on the grid up to 11th after just one lap. The Eversley man was absolutely flying and continued to pick up positions on almost every lap, making it to eighth by lap four.
Team-mate Adam was on the receiving end again, however, as another rival clattered him on lap six and effectively ended his race. The Fife-based driver eventually clawed his way back to a respectable 13th at the finish.
The second half of the race was all about Collard, however, as he tore through the opposition like a man on a mission. Lap after lap he moved up the order, passing a number of title rivals on the way. In the closing stages of the race he enjoyed a close tussle with Neal as he tried to wrestle third spot from the Vauxhall man. In the end Neal just managed to hang on by fractions of a second, and Collard had to be content with a fine fourth place finish after a truly gutsy performance.
“The BMW was absolutely fantastic in race three, it just felt fast in every corner all the way through,” said Collard.
“I got a blinding start and after that I just found it quite easy because there was no weight on the car and the guys in front seemed to make mistakes and come back to me. I have to rate that as one of the best drives of my career.
“I had a similar race through from the back here last year, but to do it against the quality opposition I was up against today was very satisfying. It was disappointing not to pick up more points in the first two races from a championship point of view, but I enjoyed the last race so much it almost made up for it.”
Airwaves BMW team principal David Bartrum added: “What can I say about that last race? Rob’s drive was incredible; he was the star man without a shadow of a doubt. It was such a good drive it almost felt like we had won at the end, it was a sensational fightback from where he was on the grid.”
Next up for Collard and Airwaves BMW in the BTCC is the meeting at Croft in North Yorkshire, with three races on Sunday June 14.
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