James Nash heads into the Silverstone BTCC finale with maximum confidence of seeing off Airwaves Racing in both the Independent Drivers’ and Teams’ Championship battles. The Triple Eight driver is facing competition in the form of Mat Jackson, now partnered by former double overall Champion James Thompson.
Although Airwaves is running three Ford Focuses for the aforementioned Jackson and Thompson plus Liam Griffin, as Triple Eight fields a pair of Vauxhall Vectras for Nash and Ollie Jackson, the Rockingham winner is highly confident that he will not be overhauled.
“I don’t think there’s any other driver in the championship this year who has been in the points as many times as I have,” Nash explains to GPUpdate.net. “To be in with a fight of both the overall and Independents’ Championships is just great news.”
In the overall title battle, Nash is currently placed fifth and very much the outsider, as he lies 44 points behind series leader Matt Neal with a maximum of 52 on offer at the Northamptonshire circuit; acknowledging this, the 25-year-old from Milton Keynes is chiefly targeting Independent honours.
“I’m just here to go and collect as many points as I can, as I have done every weekend,” Nash continues. “That will hopefully bring in the Independents’ Championship and hopefully we’ll come out higher in the main championship – finishing fourth, ahead of Mat Jackson, would be great and anything above that would be a big achievement.
“I go into the last round with a healthy points lead and, with my record of being in the points all the time, that shouldn’t be eaten up very easily. I have to say, it’s mine to win – it’s not mine to lose.
"Mat’s got a lot of work to do and you can see how much work they’ve got to do because they’ve drafted in James Thompson, who has been around for a long time, so they feel they’ve got some work to beat us. It’s very nice that they’ve had to put that effort in to try and beat us, but they won’t succeed.”
Nash is yet to sign a deal for the 2012 British Touring Car campaign.
“It’s always left open for most drivers,” he begins to sum up. “We are talking to Triple Eight and we hope they get a manufacturer on-board and prepare their new NGTC (Next Generation Touring Car technical package) car; they’ve got a lot of work to do to get that, but I’d like to think we’re in the running to be a nominated driver. But we are going to speak to other teams to see what is about – it would be silly not to.”
James Nash was talking to GPUpdate.net’s Gregory Haines
Twitter: @GregoryHainesF1, @JamesnashRacing
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