Rounds 22, 23 & 24 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship are staged on the 11-corner, 1.94-mile Rockingham Motor Speedway on Sunday (7 Sep) with United Autosports aiming to continue the progress the Anglo-American team displayed at Knockhill recently.
Glynn Geddie achieved the team’s best grid start in qualifying and went on to comfortably run inside the top-10 before, once again, the Scotsman’s Toyota was unceremoniously hit up the rear and losing a potential top-eight race result.
Geddie and team-mate James Cole, the latter cruelly blighted with engine issues in Knockhill’s three races, are eager to reward the team with some top results.
Billed as ‘the fastest track in Europe’, the huge oval circuit at Rockingham leaves a lasting impression on every visitor. One of the newest circuit developments in the UK, Rockingham was completed in 2001 and contains a number of possible track configurations, including the NASCAR style ‘oval’. This weekend’s event uses a section of the oval before going onto the infield to face a challenging sequence of tight hairpins and fast sweeping bends.
#20 Drivecool / Autoglym / HELLA – Toyota Avensis
James Cole (GB)
Age: 26. Born: Southport, England. Lives: Liverpool, England.
“The team and I are feeling a lot more upbeat heading into the Rockingham weekend. Glynn showed the car is starting to show pace in qualifying. I am hoping for a trouble-free weekend with no reliability issues. If we can achieve this we should be able to achieve some positive steps forward.
“I have enjoyed good success at Rockingham winning in both Formula Ford and Formula 3. The anti-clockwise nature and aggressive surface brings its own challenges to tyre management. I’m hoping to put my winning experience to good use.”
#21 Autoglym / HELLA – Toyota Avensis
Glynn Geddie (GB)
Age: 24. Born & Lives: Aberdeen, Scotland.
“Rockingham is a very different track from the others we race on the BTCC with is banked corners. I have had a lot of good results in the past there racing Porsches and in the British GT Championship. Knockhill showed we’re making steps forward but we still have a long way to go.
“We must aim at the top-10 in qualifying but also work needs to be done on our race pace. We are fast for 10-15 laps in a race but then suffer a huge performance drop off with our tyres. That said, Rockingham is hard on tyres so we need to do a lot of work in the free practice sessions.”
Richard Dean, Team Owner and Managing Director, United Autosports:
“We head to Rockingham after achieving our best qualifying position of the year at Knockhill when Glynn qualified 10th. We have also proven we can run at a pace in a race good enough for the top-10. It’s about time we actually achieved our potential!
“Our aim is to repeat our Knockhill qualifying performance, not get caught up in any incidents and get through the races unscathed. This very basic plan should comfortably give us our best result of the year.”