BTCC Weekend Superstar: Dave Newsham

Knockhill is always a circuit that provides spectacular racing and more often than not, there are multiple stand-out performances across the course of the weekend. Sure enough, the same can be said for the 2017 event with the likes of debutante Rory Butcher, Ant Whorton-Eales and numerous others all putting in some stunning performances and achieving great results. However, it's the adopted Scot (he was born in Wales but is now based in Inverness) Dave Newsham who takes Weekend Superstar honours from round seven of the championship.

Newsham has a strong history around Knockhill, including taking victory in race three back in 2012 behind the wheel of his Team ES Racing Vauxhall Vectra. His 2017 event got off to a strong start in practice, ending the first session in fifth, his best practice result of the year. That result wasn't repeated in the second session however, he could only manage twenty-third but come qualifying, he was right on the pace. In changing conditions, Newsham was at the forefront of the field for the duration of the session and was able to capitalise on the drying track in the final five minutes to qualify eighth, within a second of the pole time, his best result of the season.

Starting on the less-preferred hard tyre for race one, Newsham was able to consistently run inside the top ten and spent much of the race battling with the Team Dynamics Hondas of Shedden and Neal, Adam Morgan's Cicely Motorsport Mercedes and the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall of Senna Proctor. The soft tyres on Proctor's car quickly saw him move ahead of Newsham by lap eight, leaving the former race winner to have an epic battle with Morgan that raged on for multiple laps with Morgan eventually winning out and making his way past on lap twenty-two. The flying Matt Neal had charged his way up through the order from twenty first and also made his way past Newsham, relegating him to tenth. Despite losing two places, this was Newsham's third top ten of the year and his first top ten in an opening race.

Race two got off to a chaotic start; Andy Jordan missed his braking point going into turn one for the first time and speared the back of Matt Neal, spinning the former champion into Senna Proctor and collecting Newsham, Josh Cook and Stephen Jelley in the process. All of this lead to the red flag being brought out and the BTC Norlin Team quickly getting to work on fixing Newsham's car. Fortunately, the damage was mostly cosmetic and Newsham was able to restart the race from his original grid position. From there, he was able to use the soft tyres to his advantage and he started working his way up the field. It was a calm and composed drive, staying out of trouble that eventually lead to him finishing eighth but the disqualification of Josh Price promoted him to seventh. This was also the first independent class win of the year for Newsham and his BTC Norlin Racing team, much to the delight of the crowd.

Newsham on the podium after finishing as top independent in race two

With the reverse grid draw placing him fourth on the grid, there was every chance for another strong result in race three and sure enough, he quickly made his way into second place with Rory Butcher and Gordon Shedden on hot pursuit. Sadly, the pace wasn't quite there and Newsham began to drop away. Despite spending five of the twenty-seven laps behind the safety car, Newsham couldn't quite hang on at the front and he had dropped to tenth by the end of the race.

Three top tens, a personal best qualifying of the season and a first independent win of the year certainly makes for impressive reading for Newsham and the BTC Norlin Racing team. Whilst there was, arguably, potential for slightly more from the weekend, there's no doubt that this was an absolutely incredible weekend and is bound to give them momentum moving forwards to Rockingham in nine days time.

Words: Jordan Hines (@JordanHines33)

Picture: Newsham's Twitter page (@newshamracing)

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