James Pickford set the fastest lap in the opening race of the day and led a round of the BTCC for the
first time in Round 9. Round 8 wasn't quite so fortunate for the Macclesfield driver when an incident
between Colin Turkington and Rob Collard saw him hit from behind trying to avoid the chaos and run
into his team mate Luke Hines. They both spun into the gravel trap but James was fortunate enough to
be able to continue to bring his car home in 8th to go with his 9th place in Round 7 and 8th in Round 9.

James said: "I had an okay start in the final race from pole but I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep
the lead for long because I was struggling to keep the car on the apex of the corners due to the same
understeer problems I had earlier. I kept understeering wide and that allowed people to come along
side me which was really frustrating. To take the positives away from the weekend I had a fastest lap
in the first race with a car that I felt uncomfortable in so if we can make it right then we know there's a
lot more speed to come. We know we've got the pace it just didn't seem to come together this
weekend. I'm looking forward to Oulton Park as it's my home track and I have a lot of support there
but we need to put in some hard work between now and then to produce the results we want."

2005 BTCC points (after Round 9)

Drivers'
1.   Matt Neal110pts
2.   Dan Eaves103pts
3.   Yvan Muller99pts
4.   Jason Plato74pts
5.   Colin Turkington58pts
6.   Rob Collard45pts
7.   James Pickford37pts
8.   Luke Hines25pts
9.   Gavin Smith22pts
10. Tom Chilton18pts

Manufacturers
    1.   Vauxhall                   260pts
    2.   SEAT                       218pts

Teams'
    1.   Team Halfords          202pts
    2.   VX Racing                160pts
    3.   SEAT Sport UK          112pts
    4.   WSR                        46pts
    5.   Syncro Motorsports       8pts

Rounds 10, 11 and 12 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship take place at Oulton Park
on Sunday 19th June.