Turkington: ‘We’ll be just as competitive’

Colin Turkington is confident that he will be just as competitive in the second half of the season as in the first. With 15 of 30 races gone, the Northern Irishman currently leads the championship by 25 points having already taken fives wins this year.

Turkington told btccaction.co.uk “It’s the first time I’ve led the championship and we have had a very strong start to the season. We’ve been competitive at every meeting and although I’m 25 points in the lead some people might think it’s a big gap but it’s not really. It’s 15 points for a win and 3 races [each weekend] so you know there’s still a lot of work to do. It’s going to be a tough second half to the season but I’m sure we’ll be just as competitive as we were in the first half.”

Despite not having officially taken a win at Snetterton in his eight-year BTCC career to date, Turkington is optimistic of being at the front this weekend. The Team RAC driver won on the track in 2007 before having the win taken away.

“I had a win in ‘07 but I got disqualified after the race for the car being underweight so we have been quick around Snetterton in the past 3 years. I’m sure we will be this time and I’ll be right at the front.”

With the British summer so far being far wetter than expected, Turkington is hoping that conditions at the weekend are either wet or dry and not somewhere in between.

“The rain will shake up the grid a bit, so for us hopefully it will rain and it’s not a shower because in the intermediate conditions is where we tend to be at a disadvantage,” he said. “The front-wheel drive cars always have the opportunity of going slick [tyres] on the front, wets on the rear whereas we can’t do that so hopefully it won’t be the case. We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it!”

Despite not having won at the Norfolk circuit before, Turkington enjoys racing at Snetterton. “Snett’s quite good - it has some very good corners, particularly through the Bomb Hole and Coram, two fast corners, and you can feel the car on the limit. So anywhere like that is enjoyable to drive.

Despite appearing to have a significant lead in the points, Turkington is not taking any chances and believes any one of five or six drivers will continue to be strong challengers. Vauxhall’s Matt Neal is only 25 points behind, with Fabrizio Giovanardi and Jason Plato a further 29 and 36 points back respectively.

“All three of those guys are going to be a thorn in my side,” admits Turkington. “They’re all past champions so you know Matt Neal certainly isn’t going to ‘die-off’, he’s going to still be there right at the end. There’s still at least a good strong six who are still running for it so it would be mad to count anybody out. We’ll have to take each race at a time really but I think it’s going to be those top five or six who are going to be strong all the time.”

Not only is Turkington leading the championship but he has recently become a Dad for the first time, after his partner Louise gave birth to Lewis Harry in mid-July. “It’s great,” he said. “Obviously it’s a whole new world that I’ve entered into and I’m certainly sleeping a lot less! It’s been a lot of fun and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”