With the dust having settled on the 2016 Volkswagen Racing Cup season we caught up with Simon Rudd to look back on the final round, and the season as a whole.

The final round of the season took place at Brands Hatch, the home round for both Rudd and Kent based Team Hard, who he races for.

The October round saw qualifying and the three final races of the season all take place on the same day, not that Simon was complaining.

He said: “I absolutely loved it. It was such a busy day with qualifying and three races squeezed into six hours or so and with so much support there during the day it literally flew by. My favourite weekend of the season by far.

It was easy to see why it was Simon’s favourite round of the season with two excellent podium finishes in the opening two races.

He added: “It was my most successful round to date. I really wanted to get onto the podium at my home track but to get on their twice was much more than I thought – especially after Friday testing when I just couldn’t find the pace.”

The crowd was very much on Simon’s side from the off, with plenty of family and friends in the stands to cheer him on for race day.

“I hear F1 drivers say that the crowd spurs them on for that extra tenth and I always think ‘how does that help?’ but I have totally changed my opinion on that now. It was great to have sponsors and so many friends and family there to support me – some I didn’t even know were coming!”

The final round of the season wasn’t without incident though, as it looked as though the gloves were off for a lot of drivers, and they were going to make as many overtakes stick as possible. Not that Simon was involved with any of them.

He said: “You always expect something to happen at the final round but the majority of people involved in the incident for race one had only joined for this round. There have been some suspect driving standards mid-pack throughout the year but when you are racing with the front runners, you rarely get any issues at all.”

Looking back at the season as a whole Simon was more than pleased with his efforts and the results that he has achieved in the VW Cup.

He added: “We had six podiums overall at five of the seven tracks. It was much more than I thought pre-season and without the bad luck we definitely would have been challenging for the title.

“It’s a strange one. I always want to win first and foremost but getting two podiums was awesome. I would have loved to be on that top step however but if you offered me two podiums before the weekend I would have taken that all day long.”

Now that the season is over, attention turns to 2017 and what car and what series Simon wants to be racing in, although we believe a decision is imminent, Simon wasn’t giving much away.

“We will have to wait and see about next year. We have some tough decisions to make over the winter along with trying to raise the budget (as always). This year seems to have opened up some more opportunities for 2017 – so watch this space…”