Victory this season might be beyond Newsham
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DAVE Newsham insists the chances of his team winning a race this season have diminished after their struggles last time out at Oulton Park.
The Inverness driver has been rejuvenated this year with Team ES Racing, but car problems meant he finished only one of three races at the Cheshire track earlier this month.
It was Newsham’s worst set of results for the British Touring Car Championship season so far and with the Next Generation Touring Cars beginning to show their strength at Oulton Park, winning that elusive first place could well now be beyond the 44-year-old.
"Oulton Park was a real disappointment for me," he said. "Things started to go wrong in first practice and continued throughout the weekend.
"A did not finish in race one tends to set the tone for the weekend as you start race two from the back of the grid. This can also lead to you getting tangled up with drivers who are slower than you, which was the case in race three.
"I think we also saw the start of the Next Generation Touring Car becoming dominant at Oulton and as much as it pains me to say, I think we may have missed the opportunity of a race win this year with my old spec S2000 Touring Car.
"The teams with the new cars have huge resources and budgets, and will continue to develop them, which means they will only get faster as the season progresses."
Newsham struggled with the set-up of his car in the previous round of the championship, but is confident these issues will have been fixed as the BTCC prepares to head to Croft on Sunday.
It is a track that holds many good memories for Newsham, whose ambition is simply to finish all three races in order to boost his standing in the overall drivers leaderboard, where he currently sits in eighth place on 80 points.
"I like this track," he said. "It was the venue of my very first win in 2004, racing in the Scottish Legends Championship.
"I also held the Legends track record there for a couple of years, while I dominated both Clio Cup races at Croft in 2010.
"Last year in my BTCC debut season, racing the Seat Leon, I had two strong points scoring races. After suffering a puncture in race one, placing me 19th on the grid for race two, I finished eighth, setting the third fastest lap time. This was also followed by a top 10 finish in race three.
"The nature of the track surface and some very quick corners means it is very hard on the tyres. This will unfortunately hand an advantage to the NGTC cars with their bigger tyres. The BMW also goes well there too as it is kind on its tyres.
That said, a good chassis is also key, and my VXR Vectra has one of the best S2000 chassis on the grid. The driver also needs to be very brave through the quick sections, but also very technical through the tight bits.
"My aim is to qualify my VXR Vectra as high up the grid as it will possibly go and to have three clean points-scoring races.
"I am sure Team ES Racing have sorted all of the problems we encountered last time out and I am definitely up for a fight to the podium again."
Dave Newsham can be seen in action on Sunday from 11.30am on ITV4
