Cataclean Plato Racing driver Dan Rowbottom has admitted that his team has work to do over the British Touring Car Championship summer break.
However, he also reassures that the team are making positive steps during their maiden campaign, as they sit P6 in the Teams’ Standings.
Rowbottom’s debut day in a Plato Racing Mercedes ended in dreamland when he took victory at Donington Park’s Race to Pole. But, the team have spent the weekends since battling to uncover consistent pace – particularly with noticeably slow straight-line speed.
While this is no surprise for a team new to the BTCC, and the squad’s season has been nowhere near a failure, it does contrast the naturally lofty expectations associated with Jason Plato’s return to the series.
Adam Morgan said that every weekend marks improvement for the team ahead of Oulton Park, and Rowbottom hopes the summer break will provide an opportunity to focus their efforts.
“I’m happy to have ended the weekend with a top-six finish,” he told Plato Racing media.
“After the challenging qualifying we had on Saturday, reverse engineering race day was always the plan and I think we did the best we could.
“From a chassis perspective I’m feeling positive about the steps we’ve made over the past few events. In that last race the car felt like it was on its toes a bit more and that’s ultimately what you want from a front-wheel-drive touring car.
“We seem to be struggling for grunt in a straight line currently so we need to dive into that and understand why. It may be something on our side or it may be we need to work with our engine partners to unlock a bit more speed. Thankfully we’ve got the break to do all of that.”
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