JACKSON CELEBRATES SOLID START TO SEASON WITH PODIUM FINISHES. BMW Dealer Team UK driver Mat Jackson enjoyed a fantastic British Touring Car Championship meeting today (30 March) in which he scored a brace of second place finishes and a fourth and a result, the Accident Exchange-backed driver lies in second place in the overall championship standings and tops the Independent Trophy leaderboard.
In the first race of the day Jackson had a faultless start in his BMW 320si. Racing ahead of Fabrizio Giovanardi in first place he confirmed the competitiveness of the BMW as he established an impressive 3.3s lead ahead of the defending champion. However, as he worked his way through the backmarkers Giovanardi turned up the pressure just as the rain arrived. The 26-year-old held off the Italian until lap 18 when Giovanardi passed him at Clearways. Jackson pushed hard to regain the lead but despite closing down the leader he was unable to pass him and came home in a well-deserved second place.
In the second BTCC fixture, the Henley-in-Arden racer started from second on the grid with 36kilos of success ballast. Jackson once again had a clean start and tucked in behind pole sitter Giovanardi, but six laps in the safety car was deployed. As the field got away for a second time, Scotsman Gordon Shedden enjoyed a blistering restart from third and passed Jackson, who then went wide down Paddock Hill and relinquished another place to Jason Plato. Jackson took up fourth and despite a strong attempt at clawing back his advantage he was unable to make amends and finished fourth.
It was all change for the last race of the day. The grid formation of race three is determined by the finishing order of race two with the leading positions reversed to the top nine, while the pole position is determined by a lucky dip, as a result of which Mat Jackson started the race from sixth.
The final race was well worth the wait. After two deployments of the safety car Jackson was in second behind fellow BMW racer Colin Turkington. With a second place finish already under his belt Jackson was determined to go one better and was relentless in his quest to claim his first victory of the season. For the remaining 17 laps Jackson maintained constant pressure on Turkington and reeled off a succession of inch-perfect laps around the 1.19-mile track. He nearly passed him on lap 20 but Turkington held him at bay. Jackson bided his time and on the last lap made a final bid for victory as they ran side-by-side out of Clearways into Clarke Curve. However, Turkington was undeterred and squeezed Jackson out of contention as they both dashed to the line finishing with a mere 0.8s separating the two BMW drivers.
At the end of the meeting Jackson commented, "I am very happy with today, it was a good result for all the team, our sponsors and supporters. To come away with two second place finishes is excellent, I was a little disappointed with the second race as I had a poor start after the safety car but to finish the weekend two points shy of the reigning Champion is excellent. Everything went well and the team worked hard and we are all now looking forward to Rockingham."
Team Principal Chris Tee commented, "It has been a good weekend all round, Mat has achieved some excellent results for the team it's a good way to kick off the season. The car has performed faultlessly and now we have some good race data to start fine tuning the car. We have also tested at Rockingham where the car was strong so hopefully, fingers crossed we will come away with some more strong results."
