Mat Jackson will aim to end his first season in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship on a high this weekend as he looks to secure the Independents' title at Thruxton.
Jackson goes into the weekend in third place in the standings behind Mike Jordan and Colin Turkington but with only a 19 point deficit to the leader, the Jackson MSports man still has every chance of taking home the silverware to cap a fine debut year - highlighted by a victory in the final race of the weekend at Oulton Park back in June.
However, Thruxton wasn't kind to Jackson earlier in the year as he failed to score points in any of the three races following an accident and an engine problem - although he remains confident that those issues won't come into play this time around.
"Whatever happens this weekend, first of all I want to thank all the people - sponsors, parts suppliers, fans, officials and fellow teams - who have got behind our first BTCC season," he said. "Their support has come in many different ways and has been invaluable.
"Thruxton was very unkind to us back in May when we had to retire from race one with accident damage and an engine problem which meant we couldn't contest races 2 and 3 but this time we are optimistic things will be a lot different. We know why we had the problem and have put contingencies in place. In fact if we've got our maths right we may have one of the fastest cars in a straight line."
However Jackson admitted that he is concerned about his ex-Andy Priaulx BMW will perform on the harder compound Thruxton tyre.
"Perhaps the biggest factor as ever at Thruxton will be tyre performance," he said. "The Thruxton tyre that Dunlop provide didn't suit the rear-wheel-drive of the BMW in May but we took a lot of technical data away and hope we can get it working much better this time around. If it hadn't been for that meeting we'd have been leading the Indie table by quite some way.
"As for the Indie title it's wide open. Mike Jordan had a great run last time at Thruxton but there are 45 points to be won. This is the final round and some odd things can happen and there are other pressures to consider.
We'll see what happens."
