New Malden’s Tom Onslow-Cole has not given up hope of landing the British Touring Car Championship title after a fourth win of the season at Donington Park on Sunday.
The 23-year-old Team Aon star finished eighth and ninth in the weekend’s other two races to leave him 24-points adrift of championship leader Jason Plato.
Onslow-Cole is in a four-way fight with Plato, Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal for the crown and goes into the final meeting of the season at Brands Hatch next month in race winning form.
“We're 24 points behind Jason now going into the finale, which is do-able, but as always it will be very tough,” he said.
Onslow-Cole had qualified second on the grid behind team-mate Tom Chilton, but was shunted out of contention in the opening race by championship rival Shedden.
He won the second - from eighth on the grid - and struggled in the final outing as he finished ninth.
“The first race was a struggle, one nudge and we went backwards from position one,” he added.
“In the end, I was quite happy to get the car home as we sustained quite a lot of damage.
“Race two was a fantastic result, one of my wins coming through from eighth.
“Sadly, we couldn't end the day on another high as the success ballast meant we struggled with the car in race three.”
And team boss Mike Earle says his engineers will get to grips with that next time out.
“Having had both cars on the front of the grid from qualifying, we didn't quite get the points haul we had hoped for,” he said.
“This weekend has demonstrated we still have some work to do on the set-up when it is carrying success ballast.
“The Brands Hatch finale will be what it will be. We'll go there and give it our best shot.
“The car was strong there at the start of the season and so fingers crossed we can push Jason all the way to the end.”
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