Despite having run as a high as P4 in free practice, aproblem with the car’s set up meant Saturday’s qualifying session ran far from smoothly; leaving Hill in P7 for race one and P8 for race three.  To add to the British driver’s difficult start to the weekend, the team was forced to change Hill’s engine in time for race one. 

With a new engine fitted, Hill lined up on row four for the first race of the weekend.  Despite losing a couple of places at the start, the ETEC Motorsport driver had got back up to P8 by the end of lap one.  Hill made another move for P7 and then closed up on the leading packs, but with Hampton Downs one of the toughest tracks to overtake on, Hill was forced tosettle for P7 after 15 laps of racing.

Race two on Sunday saw Hill start in P7.  Coming out of the exit of turn Hill was running behind Evans. Evans was forced to brake heavily to avoid another car in front, but with no room or time to react, Hill made contact with the back of Evans’ car and was launched into the air causing damage to his car and forcing him out of the race.

The ETEC Motorsports team worked solidly to rebuild Hill’s car for race three which Hill started in P8. Hill made a good start to the race and managed to fight his way through the field to P6 before the safety car was brought out to deal with an incident. At the restart Hill made a gutsy manoeuvre and was up to P4 in one move.  Three laps later the checkered flag fell with Hill picking up a further 54 Championship points.

“After the set up issues with qualifying, this weekend was always going to be a case of damage limitation for the Championship as the track is such a tough one to overtake on, so we were up against it startingfrom P7 and P8.  It was disappointing to be caught up in the accident in race two. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but the main thing is that I was able to walk away from it and didn’t pick up any injuries;” commented Josh Hill.

“I’m pleased with the result of race three.  My team had worked so hard this weekend; refitting a new engine before race one and then having to rebuild the car after race two, so I was really keen to give them a good result.   Our attention now turns to the final round in Manfeild where we will be fighting hard to re-take third in the Championship;” continued Josh Hill.

The Toyota Racing Series standings are as follows;

Nick Cassidy 730

Hans Van Asseldonk 604

Damon Leitch 587

Josh Hill 520