Dan Cammish:
“It was an incredibly tough weekend, we were on the backfoot from qualifying, the weather was awful and really unpredictable which didn’t help things. I made a small mistake in qualifying just as the track was starting to dry. I had just gone quickest at that point and then had a little slide at the rear, which I caught, but it sent me across the grass and unfortunately damaged the radiator and that was me out. From then on it was going to be a difficult weekend unfortunately.
“I came from 23rd to 14th in race one which was a decent effort. Although, that doesn’t tell the whole story because at one point we were up to as high as fourth. We should have pitted far earlier, but there was a time in the race where we were surviving, so at that point we thought we had made the right call. It looked like it was going to come back our way, the slick runners weren’t any slower than the wet runners, but then it just started bucketing it down out of nowhere and that was us done. It’s disappointing when we could have been much further up, but it is what it is.
“Race two, I was involved in an incident and just struggled a little bit. I think the lack of dry running in qualifying cost me, I just was a little bit behind the curve in terms of understanding these new curves that Knockhill put in, especially over the chicane, and we just lacked a little bit of speed. Unfortunately a coming together with Colin [Turkington] put us both out of the race which was a real shame.
“Then there was torrential rain again for race three. We came from the back again, all the way up to tenth, which was a great drive. The car felt great and I overtook 14 cars in tricky conditions. I felt very much at home in those conditions, the car felt great in the rain and was so much more comfortable than we had in the dry.
“It wasn’t the weekend we had hoped for, but we’re only nine points behind Colin for fourth in the championship, and there’s only nine points in the manufacturers between Ford and BMW, so it’s game on for the last three rounds.”
Dan Cammish returned to the British Touring Car Championship at the weekend (August 12/13) as the series headed up north to Knockhill in Scotland for rounds 19, 20 and 21 of the 2023 season.
With tricky conditions for qualifying on Saturday afternoon, Dan and the team at NAPA Racing UK would battle with a wet but drying track, with the Yorkshire-born racer going off onto the grass and sustaining damage to the car which ended his session early. Unluckily, Dan classified 23rd in a result unrepresentative of his strong pace.
Lining up for race one on a dry track, Dan was further down the grid than he had hoped but quickly showed his mettle, gaining four places before the end of the opening tour. Continuing to make forward progress, Dan was in 16th before rain began to fall over the Scottish venue.
As cars on slick tyres ducked into the pits, the Yorkshireman was up in fourth before the Safety Car was deployed for the recovery of a car in the gravel. After pitting late in the Safety Car period for wet tyres, Dan was down in 20th as racing resumed, gaining positions to cross the line 16th. With two cars later disqualified after failing post-race checks, Dan classified 14th.
Race two was quickly yellow flagged as Jade Edwards span into the tyre barrier on the opening lap, with Dan up into 11th as racing resumed. Losing momentum after being squeezed by two battling cars on track, Dan had fallen back to 14th before passing Patterson into 13th in the closing laps of the race. Unfortunately, contact with Colin Turkington caused Dan to go off at the Chicane, with damage meaning he was unable to finish the race.
With torrential rain falling on the track as cars sat on the grid, race three was started under the Safety Car, with racing underway on lap six. With Aron Taylor-Smith in the pits, Dan was up one position into 23rd, with his sights set on making his way through the pack. Picking off three more cars ahead, he was in 20th as the Safety Car came out once again. Avoiding drama and maximising on other driver’s mistakes in the tricky conditions, Dan had charged forward into 11th, before a skilled pass on Rory Butcher at McIntyres had him break the top ten. He crossed the line in tenth, having made up an incredible 14 positions.
Dan will return to the BTCC competition in his NAPA Racing UK / Motorbase Ford Focus ST over the weekend of August 26/27 as the series heads to Donington Park to race on the venue’s longer Grand Prix circuit for the first time since 2002.
