Team RAC driver
Tom Onslow-Cole admits he isn't sure where his pace was lacking after qualifying in eighth place for the penultimate rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at
Knockhill.
The BTCC rookie started the day with eighth in the opening free practice session as he struggled to get to grips with the
BMW 320si around the tight and twisty circuit overlooking the Firth of Forth, but managed to improve in the second session to go fourth quickest three tenths of a second behind pace setter Darren Turner.
However in qualifying, the 20-year-old was unable to replicate that pace and slipped back to eighth, admitting he was somewhat frustrated by what had happened.
It's been frustrating to be honest, he said. This is the circuit I know least and we struggled a bit in the opening practice session. We got a bit of a handle on it in second practice but in qualifying it just didn't happen. I haven't looked at the data yet but Colin was quick and I have his data to work with so hopefully I can find out the problem until then I'm not really sure.
I think the car is hard to drive here and is a bit of a handful but you can still be quick. To come here for the first time in a touring car has been quite different and normally you can carry something over from the Clios and things from before. But here it was different and it didn't help that I don't know the circuit that well to start with!
However, Onslow-Cole remains upbeat for race day and said he was hoping to secure three solid results to close the gap to Mike Jordan in the Independents' standings.
We have a good chance with three races as you can make up good ground in those, he said. Mike Jordan is the closest guy to me in the independents and he has to be my aim for race one.
We don't know what to expect when we go back to
Thruxton. We have made improvements but haven't run on that special tyre so we want to grab what we can here as we don't know what will happen at Thruxton. Hopefully we will have found something that we can be quick with.
