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GKR TRADEPRICECARS.COM TARGETS TRIPLE SCORE AT SILVERSTONE

GKR TradePriceCars.com will hope to build on the points scoring finish it secured at Thruxton last weekend with a strong performance at Silverstone as the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship heads into the sixth race weekend of the 2020 campaign.

Essex racer Bobby Thompson enjoyed one of his strongest weekends of the season at Silverstone last year after recovering from a retirement in the opening race to bag a pair of points-scoring finishes – coming from 27th on the grid to 13th in race two before a solid run to tenth in race three.

The 24-year-old was forced to produce a similar fightback at Thruxton last time out after an unfortunate off in the second race of the weekend left him to battle his way through to the points in race three, which marked his seventh top 15 finish of the campaign.

Having made a number of improvements to the #19 car over the course of the Thruxton meeting, Thompson heads for Silverstone with the target of scoring points in all three races, and on closing the gap to current leader Michael Crees in the Jack Sears Trophy standings.

Thompson currently lies in second place in the Jack Sears Trophy standings and has one round win – at Oulton Park last month – to his name.

Team-mate James Gornall endured a frustrating weekend at Thruxton after suffering gearbox failure in race two, which would then prevent him from taking the start of the final race of the weekend.

The former British GT champion – a member of the prestigious British Racing Drivers’ Club – has shown his undoubted talent on a number of occasions so far in his maiden season of touring car competition; most notably at Brands Hatch where he secured the Jack Sears Trophy win on the back of three points finishes.

With luck having eluded the 36-year-old in recent events, Gornall heads into the weekend determined to fight for three solid finishes – with a hat-trick of points scores being the target.

“Silverstone has a lot of high speed corners and not many heavy braking points, so it will be quite similar to Thruxton in a way,” considered Thompson. “We need to see how we go when we get there, but the focus for me is to try and get back into the top 15 on a regular basis.

“We made quite a few changes to the car at Thruxton that improved our performance, so we need to see how those changes work at Silverstone. There are also a few other things to look at that will hopefully help us move forwards up the order.

“It’s going to be a busy Saturday in practice but the focus has to be on bringing home more points and closing the gap on the JST lead. I got two points scoring finishes last year, including a top ten, and a repeat this year would be great.”

“The last few meetings have been tough and we’ve not been able to get the results that we are capable of – and that the team deserves – for various reasons,” reflected Gornall. “That is something that is massively frustrating for me as a driver, but only makes me more determined to have a solid weekend when we get to Silverstone.

“We’ll have to see where we stand when the track action kicks off but we need to work on trying to get as much pace as we can from the car on Saturday to get higher up the grid, because all season we’ve had a stronger car on race day than we have had in qualifying.

“We know that the Audi has had some decent results at Silverstone and we know we can be in the mix for points. Hopefully I can have a bit more luck on my side and we can push for three solid results, and get some more on the board.”

This weekend’s racing action will once again air live on ITV2 on Sunday from 1100, with qualifying on itv.com/btcc from 1505 on Saturday.

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