Brands Hatch round 6 driver quotes
By Verity Smith & Dave Brockman:
James Thompson - winner
This is a nice birthday present - fantastic! I'm absolutely made up with that. It was quite difficult, I pushed hard in the opening laps because I knew with the weight on board I had to open up a gap.
Yvan's exceptionally good at this circuit, if you look at his results over the years, and usually for me it's a bit of a damage limitation job so to come away having narrowed the points gap is obviously good. At the end of the day, I'd be stupid not to have one eye on the title. I know Yvan is the biggest threat to me, and obviously he wants to try and beat me just like I want to try and beat him. I can't afford to give him a one point second start, let alone ten, so it's nice to have made that gap back up again. Anthony Reid - 2nd placeA lot has happened today, the main thing is that the MG has gone very quick, which is good. We're in the title fight.It was disappointing in the first race because we had a misfire, which was due to a faulty battery. That excluded me from the results, but I still got fastest lap. Yvan Muller - 3rd place
I don't even know how many points I have. You could tell me I have a ten point lead over James; it's not very interesting and important to me. The main thing is to do the race, and find the right set up for the car, and the right set up for the format of these races. Rob Huff - 4th placeMuller knew I was there, he was defending very hard. I gave him a bit of grief but it was great to be right up there racing with these people I've been watching on TV for the last few years.It was a great feeling to mix it with them, and to gain those last few seconds to get right up behind Muller. There was the tiniest bit of contact, nothing to put him off at all but going into Druids I just touched his rear bumper to remind him I was there. I got involved with quite a lot of incidents last year and learned that it doesn't pay off. This year I'm glad to be racing with people who really know how to race, rather than some who are just out for a weekend demolition derby! I'm really pleased with today, really satisfying to be right up there with Muller and not far behind Reid and Thompson. It's a little frustrating to be so near and yet so far, but a brilliant day. My engineer Dave Benbow has done a fantastic job for me, between us we're working very well. Jason and I are working well together too, and it was a fantastic job to get his car out when it looked like it should have been thrown in the bin. The team straightened it out, put lots of new parts on it and away he went - absolutely fantastic! Matt Neal - 7th and fastest lapThe car was great, but starting from the back you're always going to struggle. Even towards the end the car was really strong.I caught up with Tom but he just wants to drive round on the inside and I thought to get past him there'd be contact. When you're fighting for 7th or 6th place it's just not worth it, is it? I'm off to have a nice cold beer now, being the finely honed athlete that I am! Jason Hughes - 12th placeFree testing was alright, we scrubbed a few tyres in and got some stuff done, but in qualifying it overheated and the engine blew. So we changed the engine last night and went out this morning with a new engine to just see what we could do.We started at the back of the grid and just progressed and progressed through the field. I picked up a bit of damage in the second race, got hit up the backside by one of the Protons. Fariqe I think it was, I'm sure he hasn't got a driving licence - he's all over the place! The last race was a little bit better, I was behind Charlie at the end and I think with another couple of laps I could have got past him. We're just going off the setups that MG have given us, but this weekend hasn't really gone our way. We'll just take it meeting by meeting and learn about the car each time. We'll be adding more interviews and quotes from race three soon, check back later! |