More points for Team Sunshine.co.uk at Knockhill

Wed 19th August 2009 Team sunshine.co.uk with Tech-Speed Motorsport maintained its run of points scoring finishes in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill to climb up the championship standings.

Widnes racer Paul O’Neill secured three more top ten finishes during the BTCC’s annual trip to Scotland, where he was cheered on by team-mate Martyn Bell – the Barrow-upon-Humber driver forced to sit out the event as he continues to recover from an injury picked up during the summer break.

The weekend started in difficult fashion when Paul was caught out by Knockhill’s notorious kerbs in qualifying and suffered a spin into the gravel at Scotsman. Having just set the second quickest time, Paul was forced to watch on for the remainder of the session as other drivers went quicker in improving conditions, although his time was good enough to secure tenth on the grid.

Paul picked up a solid ninth place finish in race one, but it was race two where he was really able to impress as he climbed through the field to run as high as fourth, before eventually taking the flag one place further back in fifth. Such was the speed of the older BTC-spec Honda Integra, Paul was able to set the fourth quickest lap-time of the race.

The reverse grid draw put Paul on the front row for the final race, but his hopes of fighting at the front were ended at the start when he was forced wide by Matt Neal going into Scotsman and dropped down the field to 14th after running through the gravel.

From there, Paul again showed the speed of the Honda as he posted the third quickest lap of the race behind the eventual top two Mat Jackson and Jason Plato, as he came through to ninth place.

“I’ve not made many mistakes this season but I have to hold my hands up over what happened in qualifying,” Paul reflected. “We’d been checking the set-up on the car and I posted a time that was second quickest but then on my in-lap, I just got caught out on the kerbs and that was me stuck in the gravel. It was unfortunate because we could certainly have started higher on the grid.

“Going into the weekend I said the aim was to get three points finishes and we did that. The fifth place in race two was also a really good result, but it could have been better if I hadn’t been manhandled off at Scotsman at the start of race three. All day I think we showed we had the edge on James Thompson [who started race three from pole] and I could have got ahead of him and made a break for it, although it wouldn’t have been easy to keep Jackson and Plato behind.

“We have moved up a place in the overall standings and are now level with Cartridge World in the Independents, which is great for everyone involved with the team. Tech-Speed continue to provide us with a great car and the Honda was again one of the quickest cars on track during the weekend. We’ve now scored points in eleven straight races, which is a fantastic achievement for a small team, and we will hopefully keep that run going at Silverstone.”

After a second weekend watching from the sidelines, team-mate Martyn will now hope to return to the track next time out at Silverstone to aid the team’s challenge for the final nine races of the year.

“Hopefully my physiotherapist will clear me to compete at Silverstone because I can’t wait to be back in the car,” Martyn said. “It was strange to watch how things worked at Knockhill from the other side of the wall, as you don’t get the chance to see just how hard the team is working when you are out in the car driving. Having seen the Tech-Speed guys at work throughout the weekend and had chance to watch how much effort they are putting in, I’d definitely say me and Paul have the easy job!”

Following Knockhill, Team sunshine.co.uk with Tech-Speed Motorsport now sits seventh in the overall teams’ championship and in a share of fifth place in the Independents’ team title battle with nine races left to run this season.