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THRUXTON TURNS A CORNER FOR TURNER
07/05/2007
The latest event (rounds 7,8,9) of the British Touring Car Championship showed a marked upturn in Darren Turner’s 2007 season, despite that first race win remaining just beyond his grasp. A third place and a sixth has moved him up in the points table to the top six, and there were many more positives to take home from Thruxton in Hampshire – one of his favourite British circuits.
Darren had good reason to feel pleased with his weekend’s work. “I was fastest in both free practice sessions, missed out on pole in qualifying by 0.027 seconds, and had three good race starts – and I’ve never had a good race start full stop since I’ve been driving these touring cars!
“I was pleased with qualifying as it now means I’ve qualified in the top three in all the BTCC races this year, although I was obviously a little disappointed not to be on pole. My first flying lap was a bit of a banker, the second I aborted because of traffic and on my third run I had too much oversteer, which was caused by the tyre pressures rather than set-up. So my first flying lap was the one that counted.”
Having mastered the standing starts in his SEAT Leon, Darren was holding second behind first-race winner Fabrizio Giovanardi but, in the closing stages of the race, had to cede a place to his team mate Jason Plato as his tyres faded. He was heading for his second podium of the day when he was hit from behind, sending him and a competitor head-on into the crash barriers. Worse still, the competitor bounced into the air and landed on the bonnet of Darren’s car, causing even more damage. “Things are definitely on the up, and moving forward, but I’m still frustrated with the overall results and the increasing gap between my points and the top of the table. I started the first race in second, got boxed in, picked up a bit of damage and finished third. I was a bit disappointed with that, because you never want to finish lower down than where you started.
“I was pretty down in the dumps about the second race. I was having a good, clean scrap with Matt Allison before his team-mate decided to join in and Matt and I had quite a large accident. When I was sitting in the Armco at the chicane I really thought that was the end of my day, but the team pulled out all the stops and repaired a car in two hours which I thought had had it. We had a few handling problems in the final race, and my tyres went off towards the end, but it was just amazing that we were in the race at all. I started nineteenth, got as high as fifth and finished sixth – so I was very pleased. But most of all I’m really happy about my starts! Our next races are at Croft in Yorkshire which will suit our car far more so I’m hopeful of continuing this upward trend there.”
Darren, 34, lives near Banbury in Oxfordshire. Successful in many different categories of motorsport, his most notable and high profile victories have been at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the British Touring Car Championship. He's a firm favourite with teams, fans, and media alike from around the world.
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