Tony Gilham will be back behind the wheel of the Team Hard Toyota Avensis at his home track of Brands Hatch next weekend.

Gilham returned to the BTCC after a three year absence at the last round at Silverstone and it was like he had never been away from the series.

The familiar colour scheme was evident on the Avensis, albeit a little lower key than it has been in previous years.
Race one didn’t quite go to plan for the returning star, with a gearbox issues meaning that he didn’t take the start of the race, despite being on the grid for the green flag lap.

With a target set of a top twenty finish for the weekend, Tony achieved that in race two of the weekend with a twentieth place result, impressive considering that he started from the back of the grid.

His weekend was to get even better when in the final race of the weekend, a battle with Josh Cook and Martin Depper saw him finish in 15th place and a point on his return.

Speaking about continuing at his home track, Gilham said: “We were always up against it having had very little running in an NGTC car, and admittedly I was very nervous after three years away,” said Gilham. “You always worry that you may have been left behind but in truth I was happy with the pace.

“We made big steps forward with the car throughout the event and ended up very much on the front-running pace. We are quite a way behind the bigger teams in terms of finances and development, but we were on the money come the end of the weekend.”

Following the successful Silverstone weekend, we are now very excited to be getting back in the hot seat at Brands Hatch,” he concluded. “At least I have more time to get ready for Brands as we had very little time to prepare mentally and physically ahead of Silverstone.

“The preparation time will hopefully help us concentrate on trying to unlock that last bit of performance.
“Brands Hatch is our local circuit and a fitting way to end the season in front of the home crowd.”

Images courtesy of www.pspimages.co.uk