Thompson confident of victory at home.

After the six week break from action in the British Touring Car Championship it was back to business for VX Racing at Croft on Saturday and whilst his team-mate Yvan Muller is ahead of him on the grid, James Thompson is gunning for victory at his home circuit.

A leaner Muller returned to BTCC racing after the break eight kilos lighter and with his Vauxhall Astra Coup? light on ballast, the pairing proved to be right on the pace in morning practice. But the morning's results were not able to be repeated in qualifying. As Muller reflected after the qualifying session, "I was expecting a bit more, but one or two places don't matter. We changed the diff after practice and that was probably a mistake, as the car didn't handle as well as it did this morning."

Yorkshireman Thompson, driving at his home circuit in his last BTCC race weekend as a bachelor - with wedding nuptials just a week away - was satisfied with fourth fastest. "We have three lighter cars ahead of us which makes a difference," said Thompson. "So it's probably where we expect to be. We worked on race balance for most of the practice sessions, so we'll be okay. I'll be going for the win tomorrow."

Young gun team-mate to Muller and Thompson, Luke Hines wasn't satisfied with his sixth row grid slot and felt he hadn't got the best from his Vauxhall Astra Coup?. Hines explained saying, "I'm carrying 30kg weight ballast and I'm not used to it, so I'm struggling with the handling of the car and the tyres. And on my last run, the car jumped out of gear, which lost me some time. And with everyone so close, one small mistake and you're knocked down the timesheet."