Power Maxed Car Care Racing headed to Croft earlier this week (12 April), amongst other Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship teams, as drivers Jason Plato and Dan Lloyd continued their pre-season testing programme ahead of next week’s official Season Launch event at Silverstone.
Back behind the wheel of the pair of Vauxhall Astras, the squad worked through a number of set-up changes, race and qualifying runs, with Plato and Lloyd posting the third and fourth-fastest laps of the day, respectively.
The team will now be using the positive developments and data gathered for final preparation ahead of the aforementioned official pre-season test at Silverstone on 22 April, ensuring the Warwickshire-based outfit is on form for the opening rounds of the campaign at Thruxton next month (8/9 May).
“Another positive day under our belts,” said Lloyd. “Both Jason and I were giving the same feedback on the car from the last test day, which is great from an engineer’s point of view. Yesterday was more of the same. Jason tried four different things, as did I, and by the end of the day we were both saying that we wanted the same changes. That shows that we’re both heading in the same direction with the car.
“It’s great as we both have two very similar set-ups, so if I try something and it’s better, Jason’s going to improve and vice versa. It’s a good solid foundation to have our engineers working at the same goal instead of going off in different directions; that’s a huge positive from a team perspective. It’s really encouraging that we’re working together so well at the moment.”
“The test went really well for both Dan and myself,” added Plato. “We went through a number of different set-ups throughout the day and tried a few new things as part of our development programme, and the encouraging lap times and improved balance in the cars were really positive. The work put in over the winter by the team is pretty obvious, and it’s great that we’ve managed to get some more data under our belts so that we’re ready to push for podiums from the off.”
“After what has been a difficult year for all of us, the limited running we’ve had this year so far has been really positive,” concluded Team Manager Martin Broadhurst. “Monday showed that we are very much still in the mix, despite being unable to learn a huge amount about the car last season.
"We’ve done a lot of development work with the cars over the winter, which was verified by the performance on track, and with Dan getting to grips with the car and Jason getting his mojo back after a year off, we’re looking forward to Thruxton in a few weeks’ time.”
