BTCC champion Hill not totally satisfied despite Brands Hatch pole

Reigning British Touring Car champion Jake Hill has warned that his BMW is still lacking pace despite leading a team 1-2 in qualifying for the second round at Brands Hatch.

The West Surrey Racing team and its 330i M Sports were disappointing in the opening round at Donington Park, the first since the removal of the hybrid. Although this has lightened the cars by 55kg, it has negatively impacted the 3-Series in terms of ballast distribution.

Hill and his team-mates are all happy that significant improvements have been made in the intervening two weeks, but believe there is more to find.

That is especially the case since Hill, owing to his sixth position in the championship, has been allowed 11 seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost in qualifying, to the three seconds of second-placed Ingram.

While Hill took pole, he was only 0.201 seconds faster than Ingram’s Hyundai – in which the 2022 champion accidentally locked himself out of using his TTB on his quick lap.

“It’s my first pole at Brands in a touring car, which is a nice feeling,” said Hill, who is local to the circuit and grew up around it. “I’m obviously over the moon with that.

“Just a huge, huge thank you really to the team. They’ve worked tirelessly to give us an option to make this car a bit faster.

“But don’t get me wrong – genuinely we’re halfway there. I know that we’re on pole and that’s great, but you have to look at the likes of Tom who is P4 and only a couple of tenths away with zero boost.

“We’ve still got pace to find, that’s for sure. But today it’s been good enough and we’ll go and have a good race.”

Hill added that the new track surface, relaid during the week from Cooper Straight to the exit of Clearways, has mitigated the disadvantage of rear-wheel drive.

“We weren’t sure initially, because it looks so oily, and offline it really is, but for sure the last sector has helped us out,” he said. 

“We’ve got great traction out of Clearways. But to be honest the car’s really good still through sector one. We’re not that far away in sector one, but obviously in sector two we’re pretty monstrous.

“Clearways has a lot of bite right at the apex, and that helps us get back to the throttle when we want really. So it’s a nice bonus, because before that the corner’s been quite hard work.”

Meanwhile, rookie team-mate Charles Rainford was delighted to qualify alongside Hill on the front row for just his second BTCC event since graduating as runner-up from the Porsche Carrera Cup GB.

“I’ve done a lot of work on the simulator to change my driving style to better suit these BMWs, and it’s obviously starting to pay off,” said Rainford, who impressed by making Q2 at Donington on his debut.

“I started to understand how to drive the car a lot more at Donington, and fundamentally what I was doing wrong with my technique. Now I’ve managed to fix that a little bit; It’s not perfect. Jake and I are driving the same car, so I still would like to try and find some more speed in myself, but we’re so close and that’s great.”

Rainford, allowed the full 15s of TTB, topped Q2 but could not quite repeat that when it counted in the pole shootout, falling 0.021s short of Hill.

“The lap was almost perfect in Q2 and then not quite perfect in Q3,” he explained. “I just didn’t quite maximise the whole lap, but first time in Q3, I had a bit of nerves maybe, a bit of inexperience, but I know I’ve got the speed in me.

“If I can top a session in Q2 and in FP1 I can definitely do this, so I’ve just got to believe in myself a bit more. I know I’m going to probably feel a little bit overwhelmed as we go to the grid, but I’ve just got to focus on what I’ve got to do and extract what I can.”

WSR’s competitiveness improved across the board, with Daryl DeLeon lapping second fastest in his Q1 group before claiming ninth place in Q2.

Aiden Moffat will start at the back of the grid – his only quick lap, which would have comfortably transferred him to Q2, was deleted for causing a red flag when he slipped off the road at Paddock Hill Bend and got stuck in the gravel.