IT WAS a tough weekend for race driver Rob Collard on his home turf.

The latest round of the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) came to Thruxton last weekend and the Hook-based driver was hoping for a good showing.

After a difficult qualifying session on Saturday, the BMW driver would start in 13th position on the grid but was confident of working his way through the pack on Sunday’s race.

Last weekend’s racing was Collard’s 450th time on track in a BTCC event and he was keen to follow up his victory on this track last year.

However, it was not meant to be as despite an aggressive showing on the Hampshire track Collard could only work his way up to a 10th position finish in race three.

This leads on from his 11th place finish during race one and gave Collard 11 vital points to add to his driver’s tally.

After the race Collard said: “We changed the set-up of the car for the last race and stiffened it up a little bit, and that suited me better.

“Race three was good, but it just wasn’t my day. It was a bit of a frustrating weekend for us and we haven’t done as well as we hoped in the championship.

“Next we have Oulton Park, where we are back on what I would call a conventional racing circuit. The BMW goes very well there and I’ve always gone well there, so I am looking forward to it a lot.”

Fellow BMW driver Colin Turkington produced two storming second-place finishes in the first and second races of day.

Dick Bennetts, team principal added: “Rob didn’t have such a good day, but we’ve had completely reliable cars and no issues this weekend, so well done to everyone. It feels as if we have got our momentum back and we are looking forward to Oulton Park.”

Collard will race again on June 9-10 at Oulton Park.