After what feels like an extremely long winter break, Tom Barley was back on track in the Clio Cup Series a few short weeks ago.

Now Tom is itching to get back out there racing having enjoyed the opening weekend at Oulton Park in his Renault Clio.

Speaking about the opening weekend, he said: “winters are too long! It was fantastic to get going at a cold but bright Oulton Park. What a beautiful setting for the first weekend of 2016.”

Tom has moved teams for 2016 and it doesn’t seemed to have made any difference as he hit the ground running from the opening session.

He added: “I decided to move to the newly formed MRM for 2016. I’ve worked with the team owner Mike before and he’s a pleasure to collaborate with.

“What he doesn’t know about Clio’s isn’t worth knowing, which installs a huge amount of confidence in us as drivers. It’s a nice setup and we all get along but most importantly, we want race wins!”

Back to the race weekend, Tom showed that he has the pace to be challenging for race weekends at every round as the season progresses.

He said: “I was chuffed with P3 in qualifying. I hooked a decent lap together near the end but in all honesty my race pace showed I could have gone a lot quicker. P3 was great.

“Finishing race one in fourth was disappointing to some extent simply because I threw it away at the start. I was sixth by turn one, I wanted to be first! It’s extremely hard to overtake at Oulton Park, so I knew I was up against it. In that sense, fourth was actually a good result.

“Race two was a truly fantastic race! Fifth is an OK result, but actually I go racing to enjoy close clean battles and that’s exactly what I got. Three of us were literally bumper to bumper for five laps or so. What a rush!
Tom now misses the next round at Pembrey but is back behind the wheel at Rockingham and he can’t wait to get going again.

He added: “Rockingham has always been a successful venue for me. I’m going for strong podiums at Rockingham.”

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