Simon Blanckley was able to secure three finishes from race day for the first time since
Thruxton as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship made its annual trip to
Snetterton.
The Sibsport man endured a tough start to the weekend when an off at the high-speed Coram corner lost him valuable track time during the morning practice sessions and he ended up qualifying in 19th place at the Norfolk venue.
With the cars around him running at a similar pace, Blanckley was only able to climb as high as 17th at the finish – securing 16th due to the exclusion of race winner
Colin Turkington – but a poor start in race two saw him drop to 20th off the line.
Having lost time at the restart when Mike Jordan peeled into the pits, Blanckley again found himself fighting with the likes of Erkut, Martyn Bell and John George and he eventually finished the race in 14th place.
Despite running wide at Russell on the opening lap, the final race would see Blanckley at his most competitive although the mistake would mean he couldn't climb higher than 15th place at the finish as he ran out of laps to catch 14th placed Chris Stockton.
“We finished all three rounds which is great as we maximising track time,” he said. “I'm happy as there were no reliability issues or accident damage, so it doesn't affect the pocket as much! Next we are off to Brands which is personally a good track for me, I won there in 2006 in an ex-BTCC car, so we are confident of more progress.”
Team manager Graham Hathaway, who took to the track himself over the weekend in a Lotus Cortina entered in the Heritage Grand Touring Car Challenge, was happy with three finishes from the weekend and added that the focus now is on trying to make further progress during the final three meetings of the year.
