05/06/2006 - Mat Wins Again & Praises Rival's Admission
Henley in Arden's Mat Jackson maintained his lead in the Blaupunkt SEAT Cupra Championship at Thruxton over the weekend with another race win - his fourth from five starts. Mat won the first of two races at the high-speed Hampshire track, held on Saturday. He backed that up with seventh position in yesterday's second race, despite struggling with a handling problem on his car. He is now eight points clear of the rest of the field. Mat had finished second on the road in Saturday's opening encounter, but officials later decided he'd been unfairly overtaken by rival Jonathan Adam as they battled for the lead entering a yellow flag caution zone.
Thus, the officials reversed the results, making Mat the deserved winner. Prior to that, he had been the star of the show with some great overtaking moves past his rivals as he fought through from fourth on the grid in his Whale Tankers-sponsored Cupra R. "The marshals wave the yellow flags for a reason, because they're clearing up an incident and as a driver you have to pay heed to that and back off," says Mat. "I was alongside Jonathan, half a car's length ahead when I saw the flags, but unfortunately he then re-passed me on the inside of the corner. "Nothing against Jonathan and his team TCR; they're a good lot and it was a genuine mistake on their part, but at the end of the day he'd gained an unfair advantage.
Jonathan was sporting enough to admit what he'd done and the SEAT officials made the correct decision for which I'm grateful." Mat qualified on pole position for race two - his second pole of the season - but found a set-up adjustment made by his Jacksons Motorsport team didn't work out. He explains: "We simply went the wrong way on the suspension settings in an effort to look after the tyres a bit better, but instead the changes caused the car to under-steer. For the Cupra to under-steer I knew something must be wrong as it always handles brilliantly! "I had two big scares during the race, but managed to keep it all under control and salvage seventh which at least meant a few more points and I'm still leading the championship. Even though it was frustrating not to be battling for the lead again, I can't be too disappointed." Mat is next in Cupra Championship action on 16 July at one of his favourite circuits, Croft in North Yorkshire. It was there in 2000 that he won for the first time in saloon cars and he narrowly missed out on a win in the Production class of the British Touring Car Championship in 2001. Last year, he was a convincing winner there again in the SEATs. In the meantime, he'll be celebrating his 25th birthday this coming Saturday (10 June) before attending the British Formula One Grand Prix at Silverstone the following day.
