Reigning SEAT Cupra Cup UK Champion Mat Jackson is aiming to build on a stellar campaign in the UK’s premier one-make tin-top series, as he returns to BTCC action this year behind the wheel of Andy Priaulx’s WTCC-winning BMW 320si. In his first exclusive column for Crash.net, he tells us how he is getting along…
I’m now a little over two weeks away from my return to the British Touring Car Championship at
Brands Hatch, and from what we’ve seen in pre-season testing it’s all been extremely encouraging so far. We’ve only had very limited time in the car – one day’s full running in dry conditions and a day in the wet, so two days altogether – or 300km – which isn’t a lot, but the BMW is a sorted bit of kit. It’s proven it can win a championship. We tested at Rockingham and the car was strong there, so we are pretty confident really. I think we’ve got probably the best tool on the grid.
Being rear wheel-drive means it’s a different style of driving to the front wheel-drive car I raced in the SEAT Cupra Cup UK over the past two seasons, but I feel very confident in it. I’ve done a lot of rear wheel-drive stuff having worked for BMW for five years. I’m constantly in and out of all sorts of M3s, M5s, M6s and the like, so that doesn’t faze me at all.
The 320si is very different on the technical side to the Cupra, and a lot nicer to drive. Speed-wise it isn’t that much quicker – about four seconds a lap – but it’s a proper race car, whereas in a one-make series you are having to drive around problems that are inherent in the road car to save costs. There’s an argument that the Dunlop tyres they use in the BTCC won’t work on a rear wheel-drive car because you can’t get the front tyres up to temperature, but it works exactly the same the other way round too. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other really. Also, at Rockingham my second flying lap was my quickest one on a new set of rubber, so I think that puts that argument to bed.
