Motorbase Performance team boss David Bartrum declared himself a happy man at
Brands Hatch despite a mixed weekend in the season opener for the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship season.
In its first race meeting since swapping its ex-works SEAT Toledos for a pair of
BMW 320sis, Steven Kane picked up a points finish on his debut in the series while team-mate Rob Collard came through the field in race three to fall just shy of a top ten finish as he made his BTCC return.
The only downside for the team came in the second race of the weekend when both drivers were forced into retirement – in Kane's case with the damage sustained also ruling him out of race three – but Bartrum was still happy with how it had gone.
“Rob is learning the car still but he will get there and he showed it in the final race when he came from the back to finish eleventh, which I'm happy with,” he said. “Steven just showed raw speed from the start, and was in the top ten throughout Saturday. We'd have done better if it hadn't been for the weather, but it's the same for everyone. He hasn't been out of the top ten all weekend and was eighth in the first race. I'm happy with the speed, I love the car and we'll get quicker.
“Steven isn't here to make the numbers up and is a very quick, keen and talented driver. He is a racer and showed it in the Carrera Cup last year; he just needs to learn a little but about the BTCC. But he will go well in touring cars.”
Bartrum added that he was hoping to make more progress during the second round of the season at Rockingham, a circuit where BMWs have already gone well in the past.
“I hope we keep going forward although we will get the stage where we are carrying more weight than the other BMW teams because of the sequential box,” he said. “They may have a couple of tenths of a second over us, but when it comes to racing that isn't much in the BTCC and it's the luck of the draw.”
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