Sport   Other Sports   Touring Cars

A View From The Driver's Seat: Cold but satisfying!

By Dave Newsham / MJP Media | 22 March 2013

In this article, Dave describes his day at the official British Touring Car Championship Media Day at Donington Park and looks forward to the season opener at Brands Hatch next week.

BTCC Media Day at Donington Park

Well everybody, this is the first opportunity I have had to run the car in typical early season conditions. Following an abandoned test last week, I was looking forward to getting behind the wheel of my Speedworks Toyota Avensis again. BTCC Media Day at Donington Park yesterday was the first opportunity not only for me, but also for me to compare myself with all the other drivers, so we could finally see how we compare on pace to the competition.

After a long 450 mile drive through some dodgy weather, I arrived at Donington and was greeted with dry conditions, but it was just as cold as the Highland conditions I had left the day before. It was an early start to get signed on and my new race kit on for the all important media pictures and interviews. That's great, but all a racing driver wants to do is to get some laps in...

Dave with his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis

My first run was on a set of worn tyres and I immediately realised the weather was going to make things tricky for us. This was because the rear tyres were not getting warm, meaning I was taking some corners as if I was in a drifting competition. You can imagine my surprise when I came in after ten laps to be told we were sitting P3. The Speedworks boys and I made some adjustments to try and make the car heat its tyres a little more, but by this time we had dropped to sixth. Time for new tyres and immediately my lap time dropped into the 1m 10's - the same time as my qualifying effort from last year with the Vectra, which considering the conditions was a pretty good effort.

We decided to run a set of worn new compound Super Soft tyres in our next session, however despite initially feeling a lot more grip, something went wrong with the car, so I pitted before completing the first lap. It was a little more serious than a quick fix, so I climbed out of the car and left the fantastic Speedworks boys to work their magic.

The Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis performed well in testing

Part of our program for the day was to bed in a few sets of brakes ready for Brands Hatch. After the car was repaired we could have gone for a banzai hot lap to propel us up the order, or we could stick to our program and spend the remaining time preparing for Brands Hatch. As there are no points for quick lap times on Media Day, brakes were bedded and the team and I came away from Donington very satisfied.

Whilst we certainly had a great test at Portimao, as we were on our own the questions were always in my mind as to how quick we were compared to our real competition. I now know and the answer is we are in pretty good shape! So Brands Hatch and the big season opener is next week. I hope to see you there and please come and say hello to the team and me over the weekend.

Dave #17

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media