Michael Caine is back behind the wheel this weekend as the Avon Tyres British GT Championship returns to Brands Hatch.

Caine races for the Wrotham based Motorbase Oman Air team alongside Ahmad Al Harthy and both will be looking to do well for the team in the race at their home track.

Before the summer break however Michael was given the unique opportunity to drive the teams new, New Generation Touring Car in the British Touring Cars and he did a sterling job too.

Kent Sports News caught up with him to get his thoughts on the season so far including making his return to the BTCC.

He said: “It was fantastic just to have the opportunity to drive the NGTC car was great, having driven the S2000 car this year I was given the chance to drive the latest and greatest in touring cars, and it was just nice to be given the opportunity to have a go.

“In free practice one we made some changes as we didn’t really like the set-up of the car but in free practice two we didn’t get to test them fully due to a car going into the wall.

“The first time that I had driven the car on new tyres really was in qualifying and to be fair I just overdrove it, I asked to much of it and to be honest it was an ok qualifying, but it wasn’t as good as the car was.

“In race one we just cracked on and made the car better again, and finished in the top ten which was good but we did take a few gambles with wets in the other races which didn’t quite come off for us, otherwise we could have been on the podium.

“I helped the team out in the test day ahead of the Snetterton races after the summer break, and if I get the opportunity again I would jump in the car again.”

However, Michael has one aim and that is what he is focussing on for the rest of the season and that is winning the Championship despite the success ballast issue.

He added: “My aim now is to win the GT championship with Ahmad and for Motorbase having won the championship last season.

“We are carrying 110 plus kilograms at most circuits which is a lot more than we carried last season, we have bleated and moaned and kept moaning and trying to fight our cause to get it removed.

“Then we went and won the last race so that hasn’t probably helped our cause. To think that we have won that race with so much weight on the car it is very impressive for the team. If we hadn’t been carrying so much weight in the championship we would have won more races and been even further up in the championship than we actually are.

“We will have to see how the rest of the season goes, we need some changeable conditions really, we need a wet dry race and if we get that then we will be back on the top step of the podium once again.

“If it stays hot then we will just struggle in qualifying really for outright pace with that amount of race on the car. We have just had some bad luck really, we had a blowout at Rockingham, and we got picked up in the wrong position behind the safety car at Silverstone when running fourth.

“Ahmad has had a drive through penalty for a reason that none of us have ever known, so we have had a bit of bad luck, with decisions not going our way. Last season though we had them go our way at the end and we ended up winning the championship.

“There are three races left of the season and I am sure there are going to be some interesting races in there as well.”

One of those races comes this weekend at Brands Hatch and Michael is looking forward to hopefully putting on a good show in front of the home fans.

He said: “It will be good, we always get great support down there and a lot of people come and cheer them on, it would be nice to get on the podium again.

“Ahmad is a driver that has come over from Oman and he has brought the will to win with him and a great enthusiasm for racing and that will be on show at Brands Hatch for everyone to see. The team has always wanted to win and it is a pleasure to turn up on a weekend and have him as a teammate and fly the flag for the UK when he flies the flag for Oman.”