By Dave Brockman btccinfo.co.uk

After a trying start to his season, SEAT Sport’s James Pickford finally found himself on a BTCC podium after starting on the front row for the final race of the day at Snetterton. While team mate Jason Plato took the win, James fended off a hard charging Yvan Muller to retain second place.

Afterwards, his reaction was just as you might expect. “Absolutely brilliant!” he told us. “All the team’s worked so hard all year. It was a different story last year: they’d had a lot of wins because it was easier to run at the front. I think this is what we needed to lift everyone in the team going into the last few races, where hopefully we can pick up some more wins and podiums.”

Pickford came into the BTCC as the winner of the SEAT Cupra Championship, following in the footsteps of Rob Huff, who last year picked up two race wins and won praise for his strong performances. There’s no doubt that this year the Toledo has been slower than its principal rivals, and this has caused some people to question whether James is as strong a driver as Rob.

James isn’t bothered by the comparison though. “Rob’s an absolutely cracking driver,” he told us. “You have to be to win the Holiday Inn SEAT Cupra Championship – like myself!” A nice touch that – in one sentence James has namechecked a sponsor and used a rival driver’s strengths to emphasise his own. Very professional.

So why are the SEATs struggling? “The whole championship is different this year,” explained James. “We’ve got new tyres, new opposition including the Hondas which are absolutely ballistic, and how many wins had Jason had this time last year? How many podiums? I think that tells a story.

“And I think the weight of the other cars tells a story – they’re lighter and we’re heavier than last year. You’re always going to get people who say that Rob is a better driver, I’ve got no issue with that, he’s a great driver. We’ve even had some great battles against each other.

“The BTCC is different to last year – people who follow motorsport should appreciate that. We’ve all professionals and we’re all doing the best we can. It’s a shame when people say I’m crap because that’s a load of rubbish. I wasn’t voted in the top six in the country for nothing, I wasn’t voted Club Driver of the Year last year for nothing – it’s just a different scenario this year, that’s just how motorsport works.”

After 20 frustrating races, many of which have seen James only finish in the minor points, often through no fault of his own, standing on the podium must give him a real confidence boost. “It does,” he agreed. “You know, when I came into this I thought I’d be able to be right up there from the word go, but it’s nothing like that because of the issues I mentioned, so to finally get a podium – especially here, a track that I haven’t been to for a while – is fantastic.”

There has been a lot of debate as to whether the BTCC is getting too physical this year, some saying that the amount of contact has become unacceptable. Indeed James found himself on the receiving end of a penalty for his coming together with Gavin Smith at Brands Hatch earlier in the year. So does he believe that some drivers are overstepping the mark?

“Last year when I was in the SEATs I can’t remember hitting anyone. Within about five race weekends I’d been involved in so many incidents – I think some people thought ‘oh he’s the new lad, he’s not coming past me, let’s turn in on him’. I think that because they didn’t know me maybe they didn’t have any respect for me.

“To me this weekend has looked a lot better, it’s all been clean. The clerk of the course had a word with everybody in the briefings and told us to keep it cool. Usually it all goes off in the third race so I was a bit curious what was going on behind me.

“I don’t know, there’s always been contact in touring car racing. I remember reading an article last year saying there was too much contact blah blah blah, so I don’t think anything’s really changed this year.”

They say you’re only as good as your last race, so Pickford will be heading to Knockhill with his best result of the season so far to reflect on, and he will be hoping to improve still further.

“It’d be great to get a win,” he grinned. “I’ll be focussing on getting more podiums and hopefully that will include a win, but there’s a lot of hard work to do. The last few meeting have been hard, and I’m just happy that we can just look forward now, that we can go to Knockhill on a high feeling really good about the job we’ve done here.”