Mr Pickles scores his first ever points at a scorching hot Brands Hatch last weekend (11/12 May). What a weekend it was for Scott at Round Two of the KwikFit British Touring Car Championship pushing his SGS Engineering Cupra Leon to the limits throughout the tough weekend.
Arriving on the Friday Scott was very optimistic coming into the Brands Hatch weekend. After a promising showing at the first round, he was determined to improve on that and get some vital points for the championship.
In both FP1 and FP2 Scott was getting back to grips with the car, and the tight and twisty traits of the Brands Hatch Indy circuit (which is far from easy)! However, after gaining more and more confidence within the car and making a few minor setup changes he was ready for the all-important qualifying.
In qualifying Scott went out looking to break into the 48-second lap times as this would give him the best chance to being as far up the grid as possible, which he did by putting in a lap time of a 48.79 which was only 0.9 off of pole. However, with Brands being such a small track and everyone so close together this put him 18th on the grid for race one. Lots of positives were taken away from qualifying. Although P18 is not where Scott wanted to ultimately be, this was the closest he has been to the rest of the field and it meant he could push forward and build some much-needed race-craft... Which is exactly what he did!
In Race One Scott was looking to push up the field as far as possible and after a smooth get away this is what he did. After a battle with Daryl De-Leon at the opening on the race he was then able to push onto the next pack. After a few cars fell off the track Scott was sitting in P15 looking to get his maiden BTCC point, this was up until the last lap of the race when hard charging Adam Morgan snatched away P15 at paddock.
Moving into Race Two Scott was hit with extremely bad luck. This was to do with the down pipe on his car which had a little crack in and this meant that it started smoking a lot within the car therefore meant Scott done the right thing and pitted to ensure the car was safe and nothing bad happened.
Sadly, this meant he started Race Three from last however on the positive side it could only go up from there! After a good get away on the soft tyres, Scott was carving his way through the pack making some clean overtakes. A race long battle with Sam Osbourne was thrilling to watch and eventually Scott and Sam were able to reel in other Jack Sears contender Mikey Doble. With nothing to lose and a gap into druids, Scott was able to lunge up the inside of Doble and snatch away P15 and nearly even P14 in the last corner. However after post race penalties for Osbourne Scott was promoted to P14 managing to get 2 points on the board.
Overall, it was a positive weekend at Brands Hatch and there were lots of great things to take away. It's not long now until Snetterton for Round Three and Scott is working hard at home on the simulator to push into those vital point positions again!
