Aaron Scott said the ABG Motorsport team had had to the 'wring the neck' of its Dodge Viper to secure a podium finish from the opening rounds of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship at Oulton Park.

Scott and team-mate Craig Wilkins had looked well placed to secure a top three finish in the first race of the weekend in Cheshire before running into problems in the final lap, but the pair made amends by taking third in the second race with the lone Viper in the field.

Speaking to Crash.net afterwards, Scott admitted he was relieved to have picked up a solid result to make up for the race one disappointment, although he said the team was having to work hard to get the most of its car.

“Losing the podium in race one was gut-wrenching because I think I'd shown that I'd earned it,” he said. “We had some bad luck last year and I thought 'oh no, here we go again'.

“It was a good run in race two and I was surprised to be able to stay with the leaders like I could at the start, because the car is pretty hard work round here.

“If you look at the pace of the Viper, it isn't one of the stronger cars, so we are having to extract a lot from the car. I wouldn't say the others are having it easy, but some cars may not need engineering quite as much as ours does. We are really wringing the Vipers neck at the minute.”

Having come close to a maiden win on a few occasions last year, Scott said he wasn't sure on the team's chances this season given the pace of the Rollcentre Mosler through the opening rounds, but said the team would work hard to try and secure the breakthrough victory.

“The Mosler looks so strong and I'm not sure if any of us will get close to them,” he said, “but I'd like to think we'll be there or thereabouts if they have a bad day or we can catch them up.

“To be fair, I didn't think the Viper would be the car to have at Oulton and we got a podium, so when we get to tracks that suit us, we'd hope to be closer.”