After a tough weekend last time out at Rockingham, Barrow-upon-Humber racer Martyn Bell is hoping for improved luck at Thruxton this weekend as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship heads to the Hampshire circuit for the third round of the year.

The Team AllAboutProperty.com driver had hoped to open his account for the season at Rockingham two weeks ago only for things to go against him, and he will now look to kick start his campaign at the quickest circuit on the BTCC calendar, one that should be well suited to his BMW 320i.

Although things didn’t go to plan at Thruxton last season when a mechanical issue forced him out of two races, Martyn has gone well at the venue in the past and will now hope to bring his BMW home inside the top ten for the first time this year.

“I’m going there with a clear head and a nice straight car,” he said. “The BMW is strong aerodynamically and is a very quick car so we should be in good shape. I’ve gone well at Thruxton earlier in my career and I probably as have much knowledge of the track as anyone else. I think all the BMWs will go well this weekend, although I feel that the Honda Integra will be the car to beat, despite running to the older BTCC specification.”

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Martyn added that he was looking to try and improve on his performance in qualifying to get as high up the grid as possible, with that having been his achilles heel to date this year.

“I seem to struggle a little bit in qualifying,” he admitted, “and I want to get that right. Maybe I focus too much on getting the race pace right, but we seem to be good at that and when the race starts, I can pick cars off. It was just a shame that I couldn’t do that last time out at Rockingham when I got stuck behind Erkut in race one and was then forced out of a good position in race two.

“We had a good weekend at Brands Hatch but then a bad one at Rockingham, so we want to try and turn it around again this weekend. We expected to have some points on the board before now but it wasn’t to be. However, we have a quick car and hopefully we can put that right at Thruxton and secure our first points of the season.”