Having followed CPRL team-mate Adam Morgan home in the Donington Park qualifying race on Saturday, Daniel Rowbottom pointed to several factors which were behind the team’s recent uptick in performance.
The team entered into administration in the days following their recent Knockhill success, with the changes behind the scenes dominating the motorsport news in the run-up to this weekend’s on-track action.
Arriving at the Leicestershire venue, the team has undergone significant branding changes, adopting a new all-black colour scheme amid the company’s current administration process.
Against that backdrop, both Morgan and Rowbottom were on form on Saturday, with Morgan qualifying with the fastest time for the second event in a row, before going on to convert it into a qualifying race victory for the second time in as many weeks, with Rowbottom following him home to secure a CPRL front-row lockout for Sunday’s opening race.
“It’s been a really good day,” said Rowbottom to TouringCars.Net. “The car has been in a strong window all day, which is important when you only have FP1 to prepare before qualifying.
“With qualifying also taking place on full fuel, the cars don’t feel as sharp as they once did, so it’s difficult to maximise everything.
“Adam’s done a great job – it’s been like waiting for a bus; you wait for years and two come along at once.
“I didn’t quite have the front end on my car to challenge, but I certainly had the pace on everybody else, so it’s really encouraging.”
Rowbottom pointed to multiple factors behind the team’s recent upturn in performance, including having had more time to improve the chassis and benefitting from more TOCA Turbo Boost than their rivals.
“The car is in a good place. We’ve also got 20 seconds of boost available, and that’s obviously helping us at the moment. If you take that away, we will move backwards, although by how much I’m not sure.
“There are a lot of reasons for our improvement. We received the cars late and haven’t had enough time to test everything, so we’ve had to try things during the race weekends.
“If anyone believes we’ve had a helping hand from TOCA, they’re welcome to protest the car and have a look. Josh [Cook] wasn’t far behind in his car, and they can’t tickle everything.
“We’re just we’re reaping the rewards of putting the investment in the right places and working really hard.”
Against the backdrop of the administration process, Rowbottom said it had been a challenging week leading up to the event.
“The business is in administration and it’s a challenging time,” continued Rowbottom. “Cataclean have continued to support the business during the administration process, safeguarding the jobs of everybody in the team.
“It is a hard time, and it’s been a challenging week. I’ve got pretty thick skin, but I’ve read a lot of comments online that are quite to the bone.
“There are two sides to every story, and it will all come out in due course. We just have to keep our head down and keep pushing.
“It has been playing on my mind, but maybe we’ve got a little bit more time in our locker, which is good.
“With the business currently for sale, we need to put on a good for sale advert and winning races in the BTCC is just about as good a statement as you can make.”