Dan Rowbottom: aiming high in 2021
Team Dynamics’s new recruit is chomping at the bit for his BTCC return
The moment of truth has arrived. This weekend, after a year away from the British Touring Car Championship, I will be making a return and I will be joining the hugely successful Team Dynamics squad at the wheel of the Halfords Racing with Cataclean Honda Civic Type R. I will be team-mate to three-time champion Gordon Shedden and will have BTCC legend Matt Neal as my driver mentor. No pressure there, then!
Settling into Team Dynamics has been an easy transition. I am local to the team, so the guys and girls there are probably fed up with me popping into the workshop all the time – it is only eight miles from my house, so it has become a second home to me.
Fitting in wasn’t a problem and it has allowed me to learn all about my new weapon for the 2021 season, the Honda
Civic Type R FK8. The whole course of getting to grips with a new car starts with the seat fitting – which is actually a fairly lengthy process because you want to make sure you are nice and comfortable. I was taken through all the systems on the car and there are some differences from the BTCC machines I have driven before.
You learn what is in the car and what does what just to make sure that everything is as you need it. The team asked if I wanted different buttons on the steering wheel moved, but I told them no, I just wanted to get on with it as it was. I wanted to adapt around what was there already. Team Dynamics is full of experienced people so dealing with a rookie to the team like me wasn’t too much of a problem for them.
A few days before we did our first test session at Snetterton, we went to the MIRA test track for a shakedown. We went through the systems again and I made sure I was familiar with the way the car works, but the adaptation has been an easy process.
I have had plenty of data and onboard footage to go through too, which has been given to me by Team Dynamics. It is nice, because I have been able to watch what [previous drivers] Dan Cammish and Matt Neal were doing in the FK8 last year.
I can see where they brake, where they turn in and what gear they are using. That means when I went to the tests I had some subconscious knowledge of what
I was supposed to be doing.
We have done seven days in the car ahead of the new season, so that is a substantial test programme. Immediately, I could tell that the Honda was a huge step forward from anything I have driven before.
One of the biggest things I noticed was that the chassis is so reactive to changes.
It is so well developed within its own performance envelope that it doesn’t take a drastic amount of time to resolve any issues you have. With other cars I have driven, you can make huge changes and hardly feel a thing on track. You can change X, Y or Z on the Civic and the result is either better or worse. There are no grey areas – and that hasn’t always been the case for me in the past. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.
We are kicking off at Thruxton this weekend and yes, historically, it has been a great track for the FK8 but I am still on a journey. I have watched some of the onboards from the FK8 from there and
I can confirm it does look very, very fast! There are corners that are flat out in the Honda that I have never been around flat out before, so that will be a test of how brave I feel…
I am going to work myself into it. The last two or three days of our test sessions have been really positive. Towards the end of the programme, I was able to set lap times which would put me near the front – and that is something I have not had before. I am feeling quietly confident, but I don’t want to over-egg it.
I have readjusted my expectations a little. I found a pace in the car that I think can put me at the sharp end. Initially, I thought I would be in the higher midfield, but now I have set my sights a little bit further up and, as a team, we are in a very good place. My new team-mate Gordon has been incredibly fast everywhere we have gone to test and everyone is upbeat. I just need to make sure I take my brave pills ahead of this weekend.
I am just determined to play my part for the team, learn as much as I can, get the best results I can and, most of all, enjoy the experience. That’s what motorsport is all about.