Team B&Q ready to build on experience.

Previous visits to the famous Brands Hatch circuit have proved to be frustrating experiences for Team B&Q, but the York-based outfit returns to the track for the penultimate rounds of the British Touring Car Championship with a full season of experience under its belt.

Way back in the middle of March, the team found itself at Brands for the official pre-season BTCC test session, but track time was severely limited as it was plagued by an engine misfire which led to the car ultimately having to be returned to the workshop to rectified. A couple of weekends later, the team was back for the opening rounds of the championship and, whilst the engine gremlins were fixed, Jim Edwards Jnr rolled his car into the gravel trap at Paddock Hill Bend during the free practice session. Quite an inauspicious start to the season!

Since then, things have quietly improved and, despite a number of different team-mates, Edwards has continued to rack up some good solid results and has been near the top of the driver's championship for most of the season. However, similar results have eluded the team of late and this has caused some to question why some rivals have started to gain an advantage.

"The Honda Accord is a superb motor car, and is the ideal machine with which to fulfil our goals for the season," a typically forthright Edwards says, "But it has been around for quite a while now, and is nearing the end of its development, and we are starting to struggle against the newer cars such as the Alfa 156s, the Honda Civics and the rear wheel drive BMW.

"At the start of the season, we were quick out of the blocks and we picked up some superb results along the way, but the newer cars are finally coming into their own as the teams who have built them are starting to iron our their reliability woes."

"I think maybe by mid-season our position in the championship flattered us to a degree. Whilst we were there on merit it was only a matter of time before the likes of Gavin Pyper and Norman Simon started to realise their true potential and started racking up some serious points. I think I could have held on to a higher placing had it not been for a couple of meetings where we came away with less points than we deserved, but that's motor racing!"

Edwards, however, will be a man on a mission at Brands Hatch as the championship race comes down to the final four races of the season.

"I will be going out and trying for all I am worth to secure that third place finish behind James Kaye and Norman Simon in the championship," he insists, "If I achieve that, then that will be as good as a championship win for me, as Gavin Pyper and Tom Boardman are really coming on song now and they are the obvious threats to overhaul me and Spencer Marsh for third.

"If I can't reclaim third place and hold it to the end of the season, then I will be reasonably happy to beat Spencer Marsh and be the top Honda Accord in the championship. Considering we have no set up data when we turn up to a circuit, that would be quite some achievement."

The last time that the British Touring Car Championship raced on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit was the final round of the 2001 season. Jason Plato finally won a titanic season-long battle with his team-mate, Yvan Muller, to take the overall title in appalling weather conditions. That same meeting saw Jim Edwards Jnr making his race return after a part-season lay-off in, rather bizarrely, a Formula Renault single seater car!

"It was an experience" was all he will say on the matter, although the smile on his face as he left the circuit that evening suggested he enjoyed that 'experience'.