Yes, we've been quickest so far, series sophomore acknowledges, but the true picture will only be revealed this weekend...
by Russell Atkins
He may have been fastest in both official pre-season tests and been singled out by defending champion Fabrizio Giovanardi as a key title contender, but heading into his second full year in the HiQ British Touring Car Championship, Mat Jackson insists he is taking nothing for granted.
As if all that were not enough, the 26-year-old was also selected last week as a member of the British Racing Drivers' Club's new Superstars programme [see separate story - click here], something he acknowledged as a major fillip as the start of the BTCC season looms at Brands Hatch this weekend.
"It's a great privilege to be selected by the members of the BRDC as one of the 14 top young drivers in the UK," he enthused, speaking exclusively to Crash.net Radio. "It's obviously a great opportunity, and I think it's a great incentive for any young driver to be given access to these guys like Damon Hill and Derek Warwick - people who have been around for such a long time and who have huge knowledge of the sport. It's so difficult in motorsport to key into that from the outside. It's a great help to be on the inside and be able to talk to them.
"I think the major advantage for everybody in the scheme is networking - to be able to meet the people who have been there and experienced all this first-hand. There's no substitute for that; it's the old saying that it's not what you know, it's who you know. These guys I think can really help the sport move forward and bring young talent through. Hopefully that will continue."
As to his chances in both the Kent curtain-raiser and the championship in general, Jackson was optimistic but cautious. Optimistic because he has set the quickest time in both of the pre-season testing outings at Rockingham and Brands Hatch, and cautious because this time twelve months ago he stormed to a podium finish on his BTCC 'debut' at the same venue - only to subsequently be disqualified from the results for having ignored a black flag prompted by flailing bodywork rubbing on the tyre of his ex-Andy Priaulx World Touring Car Championship-winning BMW 320si.
"We're setting ourselves up for a big fall I think!" he joked of his scintillating testing form. "Over the winter we managed to secure Accident Exchange as the main sponsor on the car, and that has really given us a boost financially to make the team better, improve what we had before and move forward technically. That's a great help, and in pre-season testing we've been fastest in both official tests, albeit by the tiniest of margins at Brands Hatch.
"At the moment it looks good and it's great to repay Accident Exchange with some good results, but we need to know what the other guys are doing too. Have the SEATs got their boost wound up? Who knows? I think all you can read into pre-season testing is what you're doing yourself. At the end of the day everybody knows what weight they've got in the car and what's going on, but I don't think you can take much notice of the other guys.
"We can look at the lap times and say we're under the pole time from last year, so we're obviously not too slow, but we'll see. It really doesn't matter what we've done in testing so far. It gives us confidence and a boost in the team, but we've got to go and do it at Brands Hatch when it matters. It's all well-and-good doing it on a test day, but if it's not there in qualifying then you've got a miserable weekend ahead. At the moment everyone is free to do what they want, but when we get to Brands Hatch for round one we'll know the truth."
Jackson's maiden campaign in the BTCC last year was an eye-catching one, as he triumphed twice en route to seventh spot in the outright drivers' standings and runner-up in the Independents' title chase. Second time around, he maintains, the goalposts have been shifted somewhat.
"Last year was a difficult year for us," the Henley-in-Arden ace acknowledged. "Obviously we did it on a very small budget, but we still banged in some good results. Now we need to improve from where we were last year.
"SEAT are going to be interesting. Both Jason [Plato] and Darren [Turner] have been very close in the times so far - I think they were ninth and tenth at Brands, which doesn't seem all that fast, but that diesel engine in the World Touring Car Championship certainly looked very, very quick. If you watched on-board with Augusto Farfus, it had a lot more straight-line speed than the BMW did, and the BMW is not slow in a straight line.
"I think really we've just got to wait and see; it's all a big guessing game at the moment, but SEAT are a hugely professional team and they're not going to be slow. We need to see what they've got. World Touring Cars are slightly different - they run Yokohama tyres and we run Dunlops, and the car might not perform on Dunlops - but they will be there, and obviously it's the same with Vauxhall. Fabrizio's aim is to win the championship, the car is very quick and they've done lots of testing.
"Everything depends on qualifying really. If we're off the front row - if qualifying was based on the times we did at Brands Hatch in testing - then [the goal] would be a win and nothing but. That's what we've got to aim for, but if we qualify down in the midfield it makes it very tough. You've got a lot of cars around you, you've got to stay out of trouble and it's all about picking up points, whereas if we're off the front row, we've got the BMW which is a fantastic car off the line and one that puts down the grip unbelievably well.
"The future looks bright, but like I say we've got to bang in the results at Brands Hatch. Hopefully we can have three clean races and leave Brands on Sunday night with a good haul of points to work towards the main aim that we need to have as a team, and that's the championship. We need reliability, I need to finish all the races and then hopefully towards the end of the year we can see where it all pans out. It's certainly going to be very, very tough, but top three in the championship is where we've got to aim for."
