Brands Hatch Report

Tom takes his 1st WTCC Ind victory at Brands Hatch

The UK round of the World Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch had a home winner, with Lancashire’s Tom Boardman taking his maiden Independents Trophy win at the weekend. After a number of recent disappointments, it was a return to the top step of the podium for the first time since winning the 2008 Spanish SEAT Leon Supercopa title at Barcelona last November.

On the pace from the start of Saturday’s Free Practise sessions, the Special Tuning (UK) prepared SEAT Leon was setting times inside the Top 10 overall, ahead of a number of the factory entered cars, throughout the morning. Hopes were high that the 25 year old would make through to the F1 style Top 10 shootout in qualifying, but a change in track conditions didn’t suit the setup on the car and a very disappointed Boardman would have to line up 18th for the first of Sunday’s two races.

A fraught opening lap had Tom make up a number of places, and he soon latched onto the tail of the leading group of cars, which included the SEAT Leon of fellow SUNRED entry Tom Coronel and the BMW of Stefano D’Aste, both former winners of the Independents Trophy. The large Brands Hatch crowd were treated to 14 laps of close and exciting racing as the three of them fought for the win in the Independents Trophy at a pace that ensured that the overall leaders weren’t able to pull away. In the end Tom had to settle for 3rd place, 11th overall under 12 seconds behind overall winner Alain Menu.

From the standing start for Race 2 Tom managed to overtake Coronel, but they fought out an opening lap that had the crowd focussing on the Independents battle as they swapped places a couple of times before they crossed the line for the first time. A couple of laps later and both the SEATs we’re past D’Aste’s BMW and again hunting down the leading factory cars. As the SEAT Holland & Club SEAT UK cars fought for the Independents lead, D’Aste soon found himself joining in the fun, the Grand Prix track at Brands again producing some excellent racing. Boardman was in fact never headed in the Independents class after the first lap and, as for most of the race, Coronel crossed the line less than 0.5 seconds behind, taking his debut win at this level and ensuring the UK crowd had a British winner to cheer.

A delighted Boardman admitted after the race that the step up to World Championship level had proved quite a challenge, but that he was now getting used to racing at the top level, and is keen to maintain the form shown at Brands having scored two podium finishes and taken his first win.

Although the WTCC now takes a six week break before the next event in Germany, the Special Tuning team will be kept busy as Tom will undertake some testing for the official WTCC tyre supplier, Yokohama, in a few weeks time.

 
Next race is the German round at Oschersleben on 6th September.
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