Jonathan Adam admits his debut season in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship has been a 'rollercoaster' so far, after a mixed weekend on track at Croft.

The Scottish rookie enjoyed a stunning start to the year at Brands Hatch when he powered his Airwaves BMW to victory in the final race of the season opener – only to be demoted back to second after the chequered flag for an incident involving Jason Plato while dicing for the lead.

Since then, Adam has endured varied fortunes – failing to score at Thruxton but picking up a second podium of the year at Oulton Park prior to heading to the North East.

Adam qualified in eleventh place but battled his way to seventh in the opening race of the weekend, although his hopes of matching that result in race two were ended by an engine problem which forced him to pit.

As a result he was forced to start the final race of the weekend down in 17th on the grid, but made a stunning start despite the arrival of rain, which made conditions far from easy. Up to tenth off the line, Adam was able to stay on track during a race that featured three safety car periods to take the flag in eighth.

“Two points scores was today was good, it was just disappointing my engine went in race two and I missed my target of scoring in all three races for the first time,” he reflected. “I'm really grateful to my mechanics for getting me back out for race three, they worked so hard and deserve a lot of credit producing a strong car after all that. I just nailed the start in race three and found so much space down the inside. Everyone seemed to be going backwards and I could maybe even have pinched a couple more places before turn one, but I decided to be sensible given how bad the conditions were.

“It's been a rollercoaster first half of the season for me with a lot of high and lows, but I've really enjoyed my first year in the BTCC so far. The team have been great and if we just find a little more consistency we definitely have the ability to produce more really good results in the second half of the championship.”