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A View From The Driver's Seat: Let's Rock!

By Dave Newsham / MJP Media | 11 September 2013

Dave Newsham looks forward to Rockingham this weekend and hopes that past success at the Northamptonshire circuit will pave the way for the results he and the team deserve.

Rockingham in Northamptonshire is the venue for this weekend's Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship. It is a circuit located near Corby and was designed and built for the 230mph Indy Cars. It is a 2 mile oval track with concrete walls which we use only part of, but we will be nudging 150mph when we turn off the oval for a technical infield section. It is the only anti-clockwise circuit on the calendar too, so that brings unique challenges in suspension set up and tyre wear.

It is fair to say I have struggled there in recent times, but this has been more down to car issues than my driving I like to think. I actually like the circuit and in 2010 I secured pole position and both race wins in the Renault Clio Cup. Although I doubt there will be a repeat of those results this weekend, I do believe my Speedworks Toyota should go well there, so long as she is behaving herself!

Our pace over the majority of the season has been inside the top eight, but we have endured an unbelievable run of misfortune. It would be easy for certain drivers to blame the team for the unreliability of the car, however when you analyse the faults, not one of them you can blame the team for. They seem to be one-off failures and for every one of them, the team make a re-design or change the life of parts to make sure there is no repeat of the failure. It is true to say the team are learning and developing the car which will only stand them in good stead for the future. This is a whole heap of short-term pain, for what will be for both of us some long term gain!

As I have mentioned before, all I ask from this weekend is that we gain the results that our pace deserves. There are podiums in the car and me, we just need a couple of weekends without issues. A podium this weekend would mean a great deal to the whole Speedworks team, our thousands of fans and all of our sponsors.

Looking ahead at the rest of the season, we have Silverstone on the 29th of September and the Brands Hatch GP circuit on the 13th October. These are two of my favourite venues and also two of my most successful since joining BTCC. So let's finish this season where we thought we should have been starting it, challenging for podiums and proving what a great partnership Speedworks and myself can be.

Don't forget, you can watch me in all the races live on ITV4 and ITV4HD on Sunday.

Thanks as ever for your support.

Dave #17

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