Brands Hatch beckons for race-winning LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ
Speedworks Motorsport-run outfit eager to continue strong start to the season
Aiden Moffat ready to ‘play the long game’ in second BTCC outing of 2024
Josh Cook a fan of Brands Hatch’s ‘Indy’ loop, where he is three times a winner
Following a race-winning start to its maiden campaign in the British Touring Car Championship, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ and drivers Aiden Moffat and Josh Cook are aiming to maintain their early momentum in the second outing of 2024 at Brands Hatch this weekend (11-12 May).
Moffat produced arguably the performance of his career to-date to triumph in the final race of last month’s Donington Park curtain-raiser – the 27-year-old Scot’s fifth victory in the UK’s premier motor racing series his deserved prize for soaking up sustained pressure from multiple BTCC champions Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton behind.
He will duly head to Brands Hatch’s short ‘Indy’ circuit – where he reached the rostrum in 2021 – sitting fifth in the championship standings amongst the 20 high-calibre contenders, six points and one place in front of Josh Cook, his team-mate at the Speedworks Motorsport-run operation.
Like Moffat, the Bath-born ace scored in all three contests at Donington – highlighted by an excellent fourth place in race two – with the pair’s combined total proving sufficient to install LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ in second spot in the Teams’ table.
The 1.21-mile Indy loop was the scene of 32-year-old Cook’s BTCC debut back in 2015, and he prevailed there in the 2019 season-opener before adding a double victory to his tally three years later. Speedworks is similarly a winner at Brands Indy; indeed, the Northwich, Cheshire-based outfit celebrated its breakthrough BTCC triumph at the track in 2016 – a lights-to-flag success achieved from the team’s maiden pole position.
This weekend, Moffat and Cook will go into battle behind the wheel of the British-built Toyota Corolla GR Sport – a further reason for encouragement, given that the Japanese ‘hot hatch’ outscored all of its rivals courtesy of a commanding podium hat-trick at the circuit in 2020.
Qualifying will be streamed on ITV Sport’s YouTube channel at 15:25 on Saturday, with every moment of Sunday’s doorhandle-to-doorhandle action to be broadcast live and in high-definition on ITV4, beginning at 11:00. All three races will similarly be shown on the ITV Sport TikTok channel – in the UK and globally.
Christian Dick, Team Principal, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“Following so many changes over the winter prompted by the expansion to run four cars this season, to come away from the opening weekend with a win under our belts was a wonderful reward for everybody’s hard work and a huge source of inspiration for the entire team.
“Aiden thoroughly deserved his victory at Donington Park, which was the result of a truly outstanding performance, and what is even more heartening is that we know we are still some way from exploiting the Corolla’s full potential.
“Aiden and Josh as well as Rob Huff and Andrew Watson at TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK have brought a fresh perspective and their own ideas and experience to the project, and we are already seeing the benefits of that. All of them are new to the Corolla, and as they increasingly get a handle on it, we know they will get stronger and stronger.
“On the LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ side of the garage, Aiden and Josh are both very experienced, very quick and highly motivated to succeed. It is a pleasure to have them in the team, and we are excited to see what they can accomplish over the remainder of the campaign – beginning at Brands Hatch this weekend.”
Aiden Moffat, Driver, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“The win at Donington was a massive boost. I felt quietly confident going into the season anyway. We didn’t show our full hand during testing – we deliberately kept our powder dry – but I felt comfortable in the car from the word ‘go’; the only real question mark was not knowing how we compared to everybody else.
“To be where we are while we’re still exploring all the opportunities with this car is tremendously encouraging for the remainder of the season. We aren’t completely on the pace yet – there are a lot of areas we need to work on and plenty more performance to be extracted from the Toyota – but it was a very strong starting-point and we are only going to get quicker.
“I think we will need to be very tactical at Brands Hatch and play the long game. We know we will be slightly held back by not having so much hybrid available in qualifying – it won’t be a huge disadvantage, but I do think it will be enough to make our life slightly harder to begin with. That’s a bit of an unknown still, and a new situation for everybody.
“Hopefully we will have consistently dry conditions as we try to learn more about the car – there was a lot of educated guessing going on at Donington – and if we can battle through qualifying and race one as best as possible, we can then push on from there.”
Josh Cook, Driver, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“I’m really excited going to Brands Hatch. I felt like I got the most out of the car at Donington – scoring some solid results in both wet and dry conditions – and I think Brands will suit the Corolla a bit better.
“It’s an amazing venue – a real natural amphitheatre with a phenomenal atmosphere, and we invariably see a good turnout of fans. From a driving point-of-view, there’s a great mix of corners, from the high-speed Paddock Hill Bend which drops away down the hill to slower, more technical sections.
“It’s always close around the ‘Indy’ lap. The big unknown is what effect the hybrid boost and associated deployment speed will have in qualifying; being a shorter circuit, it will probably make less of a difference than it did at Donington, but it will nonetheless be a learning curve for everybody in the field. We should be ok on race day, but given our championship position going into the weekend, we might be aiming more towards race three as our principal focus.
“I think the championship this year is going to be a bit of a slow-burner, and we need to concentrate on scoring good points as often as we can. There have been seasons where I’ve achieved a lot of wins but not come away with the title, which just underlines how important consistency is in the BTCC.
“We’ll keep working on the package we’ve got to ensure we extract the absolute most from it, and provided we can settle quickly into a decent rhythm at Brands, I think we should be in good shape to challenge for some top results.”
Images: MJP Media