Gareth Howell will go in to rounds 15 and 16 at Brands Hatch with a great sense of optimism. On his return to the BTCC with Team Dynamics, the 22 year-old driver endured a frustrating weekend at Snetterton, but was upbeat when looking forward to Brands Hatch: “The car’s handling was absolutely fantastic in the first race. I’m sure that with a bit more running, we can be right on the pace. It’s been a frustrating weekend but it’s great to be back!”

Driving the Vauxhall Astra Coupe, which has sat idle since the end of the 2002 season, for the first time in Friday’s practice session, it was always going to be a hard task for the experienced Team Dynamics crew to iron out all potential problems ahead of Saturday’s races.

After running in the early stages of first practice on Friday, it became apparent that the car’s wheel bearings needed replacing – a consequence of the car not having run competitively in nearly a year. The result was that Howell had less than half an hour of running in the car ahead of qualifying on Saturday morning.

With such limited testing, Howell’s racing experience comes to the forefront. Both in the test session and in qualifying, he was able to identify a number of problems with the car which the team were able to rectify ahead of the races.

The short qualifying session early on Saturday saw Howell qualify in 15th position, 1.417 seconds behind polesitter James Thompson. Moving to the first race of the day, under the scorching Snetterton sunshine, Howell and the team were confident of having made progress. Successfully avoiding the carnage that unfolded at the start of the race, Howell found himself in ninth position at the end of the first lap, as the pack closed up behind the safety car. On lap 12, Howell passed James Kaye to take the lead in the Hilton Independents Cup, however the lead was shortlived as a gear-change problem saw him fighting the gearbox for the remainder of the race. Despite the difficulties, he continued to finish the race in 11th position overall, and the third independent.

The day’s second race was an anti-climax for both Howell and the team, as the car refused to leave the grid for the green flag lap. A disappointed Howell commented, “I’ve been watching races all year – I didn’t want to watch another one! The car started as soon as we got it back in to the garage, but it just wouldn’t out there. The dash lights were flickering, so I thought it might be a battery problem, but it doesn’t look like it. The team have got the car running superbly though. Brands should be good.”

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