Power Maxed Racing’s Hunter Abbott has been showing a steady improvement in recent rounds of the 2016 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship and he’s out to continue that trend at Snetterton this weekend.
The Chevrolet driver qualified 11th at Oulton Park back in June and backed that up with seventh on the grid at Croft next time out. Two points score finishes in Cheshire remains the high, however, as the Maidenhead-based racer failed to achieve the results that his pace deserved in the North Yorkshire bouts.
“We had good Saturday mornings and qualifying at both at Oulton Park and Croft, but we need to turn that into results,” he said.
Hunter was eighth quickest during Snetterton practice earlier today, and he’s buoyed by his chances for this weekend and the remainder of the campaign.
“Looking at the data there’s more time for us to find, which is always a positive thing,” he continued. “It’s down to the driver to apply that of course, which is easier said than done. We have a couple of tweaks to the set-up that we want to try too.
“You never quite know what people are doing during practice though, and it’s just so tight out there. A second covering the top 20+ drivers at Croft for example – it’s bonkers.
“The feeling is frustration when you’re so close, particularly looking back to Croft. I qualified seventh but I was 0.046s from being on the front row. I made a mistake and missed a gearshift, which cost me more than a tenth, so we could have been even higher.”
There are a number of reasons why Abbott and Power Maxed Racing are on an upward trend this season, but the man himself believes mileage in front-wheel machinery has been key.
“We didn’t get much running in during pre-season and I’ve barely ever driven a front-wheel car. The learning curve for me was very steep but now I’m understanding more about the physics of the car and making it do what I want it to do.”
“Reverse grid is something we’d like to target this weekend and moving forward. Let’s see how qualifying goes – we’d be pleased with a top ten, and then you can work from there.”
