Record-breaker Jackson left lamenting bad luck

Sun 31st May 2009 Warwickshire racing star Mat Jackson smashed the British Touring Car Championship lap record at Oulton Park today, but left the track without any silverware after a disappointing run of bad luck.

The Racing Silverline driver put in his best qualifying performance of the year in his RML-run Chevrolet Lacetti yesterday and lined up second on the grid in the first of today’s three races. The quickest driver on the track, he set a time of 1minute 28.106seconds – beating the previous fastest lap by almost half a second. A podium finish seemed in the bag until a puncture on the penultimate lap meant he had to pit and dropped him down to 19th.

“Maybe I ran over a black cat on the way to the circuit this morning and didn’t notice,” said the 27-year-old. “The podium should have been ours. It’s disappointing after all the hard work we put in yesterday. The car felt great and I’ve got a good track record around here so I was feeling confident.”

Not easily defeated, in race two Mat climbed from the back of the grid and into the top ten, only to suffer a gearbox failure and retire in the garage. Once again starting from the rear of the field in the final encounter, he battled his way up to eighth position – despite having the power steering fail during the race - to salvage three points. Added to his point for fastest lap in race one, he left the Cheshire circuit with a tally of 41 points and stands ninth overall in the title race.

“Lady Luck just wasn’t smiling on me today – I don’t know what I’ve done to piss her off,” said Mat, who is based in Henley-In-Arden. “It’s been a frustrating afternoon but at the end of the day I know that I didn’t make any mistakes, I did my best and that I was the fastest man of the day. I’ve got the pace, the Lacetti has got the pace and now I just need to go and find a four leaf clover in my back garden.”