Jake Hill again showed strong pace and great race craft in his TAG Racing VW Passat CC at Croft, maintaining his record of scoring points at every BTCC race weekend in 2017.
The shortened qualifying session saw Hill qualify in 16th place for race one, but he made two places early on when Senna Proctor and Jason Plato ran wide. A tough scrap ensued for the remainder of the contest but the Kent racer would eventually finish 12th.
“That was so hard! I got bashed about several times and on the option tyre with an unfamiliar set-up we were struggling, so I'm delighted to score some points.”
On the 'Prime' tyre for the remaining races and starting 12th, a blistering first lap saw BRDC 'Rising Star' Hill slice past Plato and Rob Austin at turn one, and as Tom Chilton and Tom Ingram dropped out he finished lap one in a brilliant eighth place - and second in the Independents’ category behind Mat Jackson.
His pace saw Hill edging closer to Jackson, but Plato's Subaru was closing fast and the 95-time race winner soon edged by in the factory-supported car. This left Hill racing with race-one rival Austin and unfortunate contact left his car with broken rear suspension.
After crawling back to the pits, Hill's crew speedily replaced the broken toe-link, and allowed the young talent to complete the race, albeit by now four laps down and in a very frustrated 25th place.
Starting way down in the final encounter Hill battled with Ingram, Dave Newsham and Jack Goff, working his way forward to eventually take 19th position, but frustrated at what might have been after the race two incident.
"The TAG Racing crew have worked so hard so a huge thanks to all of the boys for their efforts. We have had some guests from Ecoflam and Zynth here this weekend, and as always a huge 'thank you' to all of our superb partners Rolec, Sportif Cars, Brisky Racing, Ecoflam, Danfoss, AW Supply Services, Bill Rawles Classic Cars and we were delighted to welcome SpinCar and Litchfield on board with us at Croft.
The series now heads into a summer break, with racing resuming at Snetterton on the 29/30th July, but the teams’ will first run the circuit at the Dunlop Tyre Test on the 5th and 6th July.
"I'm looking forward to a couple of decent days testing to try some of the set-ups we really want to try. Most of the tracks remaining will suit the car, so if we can get some solid data from testing we should be in good shape," smiled Jake.
"We're really going for it in the second half of the year!"
