Q&A: Warren Hughes.

The final meeting of the 2001 British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch proved an unforgettable one for MG Sport & Racing. Warren Hughes claimed the first pole position for the new MG ZS EX259 Touring Car, and then, a day later, team-mate Anthony Reid notched up the team's first race win. Crash caught up with Warren at the end of the Brands Hatch race-day.
Warren, it's been a good weekend for MG Sport and Racing, not only the race win for Anthony but pole position for yourself - how did that feel?

Warren Hughes: "It was just a fantastic feeling, nobody expected it - least of all myself! We thought we'd be strong here, but by that we thought that maybe we would qualify on the second row, which would have been good. We extracted the maximum out of the MG ZS EX259 on the day, made the right decisions, and West Surrey Racing and the engineers here did a fantastic job.

"The MG is obviously a very good package to work with, the potential is in there, and it's a case of learning about the car and extracting that potential. Pole was the result when we made the right decisions and I'm very proud to get MG's first."

You said a long time before this meeting that you thought Brands Hatch would be a circuit that would suit the MG ZS EX259's handling and chassis, and that obviously turned out to be the case.

WH: "We've got a car with very good grip, and obviously it's a tight and twisty circuit with not so many long straights. We're maybe still a little bit short on horsepower, but that was always going to be less of a hindrance here, and the engine people are very good and know exactly the areas to work to extract more power - it's just difficult to do that in the season.

"We'll be so much stronger when we come back next year, the Brands Hatch result at this stage of the car's development gives everyone enormous encouragement. "

With pole position for yourself, and the win for Anthony, it's the perfect start to your winter development period.

WH: "It keeps everybody pumped up - MG as a company, the team, everybody involved will be dying to get stuck into the test programme. But it's a very important winter for us. We've had a good result, but we have to assume that everybody else is going to make a step forward over the winter as well, so we've got to make sure we do an intensive development programme - which I'm sure we will!