Quotes from the first qualifying session of the 2023 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season.
Autobrite Direct with Millers Oils
Dan Lloyd: “Overall really happy! We had decent pace in both practices and got into the top 10 in FP2. Fundementally we have an issue that we are working on so there is plenty more to come but to qualify P12, which is exactly the same posotion as I qualified last year in the Hyundai is a very good start to the season.
“Massive thank you to the team for all of their hard work to get to the point. They’ve done a really good job with the brand new car considering it was only finished a week ago so credit to them. There is plenty to work on but that’s exciting as there is much more to come”
Bobby Thompson: “After a frustrating day, I think we have a really good car underneath us it’s just a matter of unlocking it. We have some mechanical issues on the rear which we need to look into and we are struggling in a straight line compared to some of the cars around us.
“Considering this is a brand new car for 2023 and only had the final pieces put together earlier this week I can’t fault the boys and girls at the team and once these niggly issues are sorted we will have a really good race car underneath us.”
Dan narrowly missed out on the top-10 shootout. Photograph: Tim Glover
Re.Beverages and Bartercard with Team HARD.
Dexter Patterson: “It was okay today, we’ve had limited testing so every session we were learning and gaining more knowledge, giving us more to work on as the day progressed. Tomorrow, we have three races to continue our development and we are in a much better place now than we were at the start of the day.
“We know the areas we need to work on and we’ll be looking into that tonight to hopefully change our fortunes tomorrow. The race pace compared to qualifying was quite different and I’m confident we will be closer to where we want to be tomorrow.”
Jade Edwards: “An overall positive day considering that the engine only ran up late last night and the car was built from the ground up in just 11 days, the team have done a phenomenal job.
“The effort from the mechanics and their commitment is second to none and I’m super impressed with everything. The car in general ran faultlessly and we are currently just running through a bit of a test program which all the other cars will have done before this weekend. This means we are a few steps behind but I am looking forward to tomorrow, I think we can have a good race car and can move forward tomorrow as I start to get more and more laps under my belt in the new car.
“Once again, thanks to the team for all of their effort, I am really pleased with how things are going and I’m confident we will continue to make good leaps in performance.”
Jade is on the back foot this weekend after missing pre-season. Photograph: Tim Glover
Go Fix with Autoaid Breakdown
Jack Butel: “I think we had a pretty good day; we’ve been there or thereabouts with the pace but we are suffering with quite a bit of understeer in the car which we haven’t experienced before today.
“I think the lack of pre-season testing is the cause of that as with more running we would have been able to discover and sort this issue before the weekend but we all apricate how hard everyone at the team has worked over the winter to be ready for this season. It’s just one of them things and to be where we are with this amount of running is remarkable.
“Our race pace felt really good so hopefully we can get up the field and fight for some points by the end of the day and honestly, I’m really looking forward to getting my elbows out tomorrow.”
Nic Hamilton: “Not a bad qualifying session given the circumstances. We’ve not had the best of winters with zero testing which was a big shame and that means we have been testing at the first event of the season through the different sessions today.
“However, as progress goes, we have made really good steps through the day and ended up going the fastest I have ever been around Donington Park which is good but of course, the new track surface, hybrid and car developments have played their part in that as well.
“The car feels good but we are nowhere near the window we would like it to be in and I’ve got a lot of work to do myself to bring myself closer to some of my teammates but as a team we are working hard collectively to move forward.
“Overall, a decent, positive day considering we had no testing and let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
Nic pushed hard throughout the session. Photograph: Tim Glover