Jack Clarke made up for a poor performance on Saturday with a good second race on Sunday in the MSA British Touring Car Championship at Croft which saw him pick up four championship points over the weekend.

He and his Crabbie’s Ford Focus ST needed to come back strongly from a tough weekend at Oulton Park in testing conditions in Yorkshire where cold weather and irregular patterns of rain meant that teams were finding it difficult to tune their cars and create an optimum set up for the testing conditions, his weekend was made even tougher after struggling to regain health from food poisoning as well as needing to re- learn the track which he hadn’t been on since 2007 in his debut year in the Formula Palmer Audi single-seater championship in which he was victorious.

Despite finishing outside the top twenty he was able to complete both sessions, finishing only four tenths of a second behind his team mate and former BTCC champion Fabrizio Giovanardi.

In the first race of the weekend he was able to successfully complete all fourteen laps whilst avoiding possible confrontation however he was only able to finish 16^th, just one place away from getting a single championship point.

Despite his final position Jack felt confident going into the second race of the day and he was rewarded with his BTCC career best of 11^th, picking up four points as a result after navigating his way through the through the very competitive field.

After his highly successful previous effort the expectation on Jack began to grow, a thrilling third race followed but after a good battle with former British F3 Champion Marc Hynes his Ford got a puncture after hitting a tyre stack on a chicane which also threw the front wing off of his car. Despite making it back to the pit lane the team decided it would be right to retire bringing Clarke’s weekend to an abrupt halt.

Although his weekend ended in disappointment, Clarke was happy with his performance over the two days ““I felt a bit disappointed with my Saturday performance but knew if I got my head down we could make places come race day.

“I had a really quick car in race trim and the car managed the Dunlop tyres really well throughout the weekend. I love driving here and I was delighted to make progress each race.

“In the final race with the soft tyres I felt even stronger as the car was quick, I was quick and the tyres held up. I made a mistake and hit a tyre stack on the chicane”

Clarke also accepts that his inexperience may have had an effect on the early end of the weekend “I hold my hands up, it was a rookie error, I‘m still not used to having a big chassis around me!” The 26 year- old is still in his first year of the BTCC after spending three years in the FIA Formula Two Champiionship.

The BTCC will now have a five week break over July before the season continues at Snetterton in Norfolk on the 2^nd and 3^rd of August and Clarke is looking forward to the next set of races “I was chuffed to be fighting towards the front, we weren’t there by default and our times showed that. I am really looking forward to Snetterton and I know we can be quick there as well.”