Tom Chilton proved to be the fastest man on track at Snetterton this week, heading up the overall times during the annual Dunlop tyre test on the Norfolk circuit (16/17 July).
A total of 32-racers, many from this yearโs Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship grid, took to the track for the two-day test programme ahead of the seriesโ next meeting on the Snetterton 300 layout in just over two weeksโ time.
Setting the benchmark 1:56.144s lap during the morning session of the opening day, Tom Chilton also clocked up the most number of laps, completing an impressive 163 tours of the circuit in the #3 Ford Focus RS.
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Gallagher made it a double on day two, with Ollie Jackson setting the fastest lap of the day during the Motorbase-run squadโs morning run. With a lap time just shy of his team-mateโs best efforts at 1:56.290s, Jackson ended the test in third overall.
โA great couple of days testing in all areas;โ Team Manager Oly Collins commented. โItโs always encouraging to be fastest, especially with the way the test was run. Being quickest is great. Itโs nice to see both our cars at the top of the timing sheets, but itโs the work covered during the two days that shown in the detail behind the scenes – rather than on a fastest of the day sheet – which is more rewarding.
โWe now just need to put all that we learned into action at Snetterton and make sure we can challenge for the championship in the second half of the season.โ
Tom Chilton #3:
โHonestly it was one of the best tests that weโve ever had. We tried a lot of things that worked on the car and weโve come away with a great handle on the car now, and its performance on the soft, medium, and hard compounds.
โWe ran through lots of qualifying and race runs over the two days. Everything you need to do to make the car faster, we did. We ticked all of the boxes we needed to. We covered a lot of ground and weโre really positive heading into the second half of the season.
โThe fact that both Ollie and I were fast out of the box shows that weโre dialled into the car. Weโre one of the best teams on the grid, and we should be a lot higher up than 8th in the championship. With the ground weโve covered, Iโm very excited about going racing again in a couple of weeks.โ
Ollie Jackson #48:
โWe got through a lot of things that we wanted to try out over the two days. We established a lot of things that were going on with the car and rolled out a few new things that we wanted to try out.
โIt looked like quite a few people were pushing to beat our times, and we managed to stay stop of the board. You never know exactly what everyone is doing but looking into the detail, it looks like weโre there or thereabouts now in terms of running at the front.
โThe results so far this year havenโt given justice to the pace weโve shown. This helps to draw a line under that, and the job for the rest of the year is to get the results and to capitalise on the pace we have.โ
