I arrived at Rockingham on Friday feeling confident following on from a good weekend last time out at Snetterton. We showed good pace throughout the two free practice sessions and the car felt good on old tyres and new tyres.

I didn’t show my true potential in practice on my new tyres due to a few silly mistakes. Even so we ended up the session in p5 and only 0.07 off of P1 …. so we knew going into qualifying it was going to be seriously tight, as the top 5 were covered by less than a tenth.

Qualifying

On my first set of new tyres I unfortunately got caught up in traffic on my best lap, but the lap was still good enough to give me provisional pole . A red flag then brought the session to a stop whilst a stricken car was recovered.

We decided with only 6 minutes left we would put our 2nd set of new tyres straight on the car, as we left the pits I was feeling confident of going even faster. I did one warm up lap and pressed straight on with my fast lap. I instantly went faster again and this time put me 0.35 of a second up on the rest of the field until the last lap, when my team mate got within 0.2 of my time, but i still had a fair margin and this left me very confident for the races.

Race 1

I got a good start and tried to get my head down and pull a gap from the rest of the field. The next few laps I managed to

Paddock before race two: Photo - Richard Devine

pull a gap, but then a safety car was brought out and all my advantage was gone instantly.

At the restart I straight away realised that I had taken the best out of my tyres, so I decided to slow the pace down for a few laps to try and save my tyres. I then pushed on with 5 laps to go and opened up a gap again and was able to hold on until the end. My team mate kept the pressure on me but I just made sure that I didn’t make any mistakes.

This result was a brilliant one for myself and also Team Pyro as it was a 1,2,3 podium lockout.

Race 2

I was feeling really confident after Saturdays race. I got another good start with James Colbourn making an equal start to me and he was on my outside going round the first corner. James then slipped behind James Dixon. In the opening laps I again got my head down and pushed on to make a break for it.

This race may have looked easy from the outside but it was far from easy inside the car. I just made sure that I didn’t make a single mistake as in Clio’s as soon as you make a mistake the rest of the pack will be back on your bumper.

I counted down what seemed to be a 100 lap endurance race, but after the 14 laps I had managed to pull out an almost 5 second advantage on the rest of the pack at the flag.

On ITV: Photo - Richard Devine

These two wins have given me a huge boost heading into the last 2 races of the season and it leaves me just 26 points off of the championship.

I will be heading to Brands Hatch with one clear objective to win both races and get 2 fastest laps to give me the best possible chance of clinching the championship. I know i am the outsider in the championship but I am most definitely a contender!!!

I would like to say a massive thank you to Team Pyro and all at the JG Team for making this weekend possible and to all my great sponsors and supporters, they make it that bit more special when I get a good result and their support is amazing.

Jack Goff

Main Photo: Richard Devine