Vauxhall leads BTCC manufacturers

Two podiums and some solid points finishes saw Vauxhall’s works team, VX Racing, leave Brands Hatch today leading the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Manufacturers Championship.

Racing the brand new Vauxhall Vectra, the team was extremely pleased to be in such a strong position on the prototype’s debut, with Tom Chilton finishing third in the day’s second race and Fabrizio Giovanardi going one better in round three.

Chilton’s best result came after a spectacular move on the first lap of race two. The 22-year-old, from Reigate, Surrey, braved an oil slick at Druids Hairpin to go around the outside of Tom Onslow-Cole and Mike Jordan and put himself fourth. He went on to turn that into a podium position before the chequered flag.

Giovanardi made hard work of race three when he was passed off the start by reigning BTCC champion, Matt Neal, as well as Adam Jones and Colin Turkington, leaving him in fourth place after starting from pole. Fired up by the situation, the Italian multiple touring car champion turned up the pressure on the cars in front and finished the day in second after making Neal work for his win.

Overall, Vauxhall has declared its first outing under the new S2000 rules a success, with the car proving extremely strong in fast corners. The team will now start preparing for the next BTCC round at Rockingham on 22 April.

Fabrizio Giovanardi
"To start OK from pole position here is not easy. It’s in a hole, first downhill and then up. When I saw myself in fourth place I was angry; I thought I’d lost the possibility of a win, but I was able to come back and even challenge Matt Neal.

"The car has a good balance; you can come inside really fast without a problem, but in the end, to overtake those guys I had to push hard on the tyres. Matt Neal was on brand new tyres.

"This is the first race meeting of the season and it’s important to score points. There are another 27 races to go before the end of the season though so plenty more to come from me."

Tom Chilton
"The car was better in race two because we made changes that helped it go through the corners.

"In the third race I had success ballast. We didn’t change anything because we’d done no testing with extra weight. I got oversteer so now we know we have got to change the set-up next time."

Kevin Berry, Technical Director
"The car seems to be working very well in the quicker corners and we seem to be struggling through the slow ones, but there are lots of positive aspects.

"We’ve reached the podium a couple of times against some very good competition, our reliability has been good and there are some aspects of the car we’re very happy with. I’m sure we’ll see even better results later in the season."