Quotes from the final qualifying session of the 2022 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season.
Bobby Thompson: “What a fantastic final Saturday of the year. We have been going down an avenue of setup with the car since Thruxton and as we keep exploring and refining the Cupra Leon, it seems to go better and better. This puts us in a great position moving into the winter as we continue to develop and improve the car even further. I think before the additional weight of the hybrid system was hurting us but I’m confident we have sorted that now which is great.
“I’m over the moon for the team to secure P6 for tomorrow’s first race. It’s a joint personal best for the car and my best ever qualifying. The guys and girls have been faultless all year in both qualifying day and race day and bar a car issue at Silverstone last time out, the car has been perfect.
“Brands Hatch is one of my favourites, I actually got my first job here when I was 17 so I’ve done lots of laps and know it extremely well, maybe that helped me a bit today!”
Aron Taylor-Smith: “I’ve quickly learnt that qualifying is the hard point of the weekend. Bobby has done a fantastic job and showed the cars progression. We were just a tenth shy on our final run before a slower car got in our way and some contact produced a puncture which I far from ideal.
“I think without that, the two of us would be comfortably inside the top 10 tomorrow which is a shame and leaves a lot more work for me to do. But saying that, over the course of the season fighting back through the field has been my forte. I have no doubt that the car will be back in the points tomorrow and in the hunt for a reverse grid.”
Carl Boardley: “It’s been good to be back and part of the team again. The car was really good at our Snetterton test last week and I came into this weekend really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. FP1 was a bit damp so we feel like we were a session behind at the minute, so we are looking forward to getting into race one tomorrow.
“I think we have good pace even though we didn’t maximise qualifying. We need to make a few little adjustments over night to make the car more suited to me. Tomorrow we are looking to progress into the top 20 after race one and squeeze into the points in races two and three.
“Really looking forward to tomorrow and seeing what we can do!”
Nic Hamilton: “I was having a really good day. FP1 and FP2 were strong for me, FP2 was especially good. I went faster than I’ve ever been around here by a good six tenths so I was going into qualifying full of confidence and my aims set on finishing in the top 20 which would have been a great result for us.
“Unfortunately, we had a few technical issues heading into qualifying which meant that we didn’t maximise our potential today which is of course a shame. Especially as this is the last qualifying session of the season, but we win and we lose together as a team and these issues happen sometimes. We’ve just got to do the best we can tomorrow to move forward tomorrow from the back row of the grid. It’s not ideal but makes it more fun as we look to produce some good racing on Sunday.”
Rick was unavailable for comment due to post qualifying activities but lines up in P28 for tomorrows opening race.