Kent’s Team Hard Racing certainly had an interesting opening round of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton last weekend.
There were points and pain for the team who were debuting their new Cupra Leon in the 2021 curtain raiser.
Jack Goff and the returning Aron Taylor-Smith managed to net some solid point finishes, with Goff finishing P8 in race three and Taylor-Smith P11 in the same race.
Nic Hamilton was impressive and showed improvements throughout the weekend, with a best finish of 17th place overall.
Glynn Geddie had somewhat of a weekend to forget having got collected by Andy Neate in race two, and being flipped onto his roof by Jade Edwards who was also an innocent bystander in the incident. It meant that a P22 was all Glynn would come away from the weekend with after his car was so badly damaged early in race two, he couldn’t take to the grid for race three.
The team now have the unenviable task of rebuilding the car ready for round two of the season in five weeks time at Snetterton.
Speaking after the weekend, Goff said: “This was our first weekend in the brand new CUPRA and overall we’ve got to look at it as a massive positive. I came into this weekend wanting to finish all three races and pick up some points where we could, and we’ve achieved both of those things. This weekend was unfortunate for Glynn but obviously it is a massive testament to everyone at Team HARD. and Willie Poole for building a very safe and strong car.
“We have progressed the car every single session. A first weekend in a new car is never easy, let alone at Thruxton which I think shows up any issues with a car because its high speed, bumpy, has high braking zones, high speed corners and you’re on a harder tyre so you haven’t got as much grip to hide any faults with the car.
“Then throw into the mix that every time we got on track this weekend it has been different conditions. We had heavy rain in FP1, FP2 was a drying track on wets, in qualifying we started on wets, then went to slicks in the damp.
“Race 1 was our first time in the dry and driving the car on the hard tyre, and then we made changes for race 2 which were positive. Our pace was a lot better in race 2 and we almost ran a second between race 1 and 2 which was great. Then for race 3 it was wet again, everyone was on different tyres, it was dry in phases, then heavy rain, so overall it was a really tough weekend.
“However, the car ran faultlessly and we have managed to make improvements in every condition. We can come away from the weekend with our heads held high, but not getting ahead of ourselves. We are currently fighting in the top 10 and are sitting just on the outskirts for outright pace which is good for the first weekend in the car out of a 29-car grid.
“I think we need to find two tenths which is very achievable to get ourselves sitting comfortably within the top 10. To be battling works BMW’s and works Honda’s is a great achievement, I think everyone at Team HARD. should hold their heads high.
“I’m looking forward to getting together again and seeing what we can do at Snetterton. Until then, I’m going to be mainly renovating my new house, I’ve got some work which is nice as it feels like some sort of normality is coming back and then I will also be attending the HARD. mega day which is on the 26th May. I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of people there and hopefully some of you at Snetterton.”