The Motorbase Performance BMW team re-ignited its weekend with a double points finish in the first race of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park today (Sunday).
Despite the team’s slow-burning performance in qualifying, both Steven Kane and Rob Collard lit up the BMW 320si amid the sweltering conditions at the Cheshire track and finished comfortably inside the top ten.
Having started from 16th and 17th respectively on the grid, the Motorbase duo burned rubber away from the start line and immediately moved up to 13th and 14th position on lap one.
They remained there until lap nine, when Kane blew away Stephen Jelley by going round the outside of the fellow BMW 320 runner. Team mate Rob Collard followed the Northern Irishman through the gap to move the pair up into 10th and 11th.
On lap 12 the Motorbase cars narrowly missed being caught-up in major incident as the Honda Integra of Mike Jordan crashed out. However, they escaped unscathed and picked up a place each to put them both into the top ten runners.
By this point the Motorbase drivers were on fire and quickly closing the gap on the cars ahead. On the penultimate lap they caught up with Adam Jones and put massive pressure on the SEAT runner.
Steven Kane almost managed to out-drag his opponent to the finish line as he exited the final corner. However, he ran out of track and missed out on snatching eighth place by only fractions of a second.
Team mate Rob Collard followed him over the line almost immediately, with the two Motorbase drivers having been almost inseparable throughout the whole race.
Motorbase Performance BMW Team Principal David Bartrum was delighted with the result, with both of his cars scoring points and having avoided any major mishaps in a very close race.
Motorbase Performance Team Driver Steven Kane said:
“The car felt a lot better than it did in qualifying and allowed us to put in good performance by coming through from 16th. We want to go out and get an even better result in the next race, so if we can make it through the first corner without any damage we’ll see how it goes. I’ve got a few small changes in mind in terms of car set-up that I think will make it even quicker next time out.”
Motorbase Performance Team Driver Rob Collard said:
“It was a really good result once again for the whole Motorbase team to score more points after having started further down the grid than we would have liked. I was actually a little bit frustrated at being behind Steven as I felt I was quicker and could have gone on and caught the cars ahead if I could have got past him. However, the car feels really good and if we can make a good start again in the next race then we have the pace to go and challenge the cars at the front.”
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