CPRL’s Adam Morgan admitted that his race day in the British Touring Car Championship at Croft had been ‘a testing day’ after the Mercedes driver managed just one top ten finish.

Morgan headed to the North Yorkshire circuit – which Morgan openly admitted was not one of his favourites – with significantly reduced TOCA Turbo Boost, going from 20 seconds per lap to just seven, thanks to his performances at the previous event boosting his championship position.

That contributed to Morgan qualifying in 12th for Saturday afternoon’s qualifying race, which is where he finished the sprint, having struggled to make progress.

Rain arrived before Sunday’s opening race, and Morgan was one of a handful of drivers who opted to go to the grid on the hard tyres before pitting at the end of the formation lap to change to wets, thereby ‘getting rid’ of his requirement to run the slower rubber.

In the end, the Lancastrian took the chequered flag in a lowly 15th, although he was encouraged by his pace.

Race two then saw Morgan spin in the opening laps, dropping to the back of the pace, and he could once again only recover to 15th.

His strongest pace came in the final race of the day, when Morgan avoided several incidents at the start before picking off the hard tyre-shod cars in front to finish in fifth and move back ahead of team-mate Daniel Rowbottom in the drivers’ standings.

Reflecting on his weekend, Morgan told TouringCars.Net how he had expected more of a challenge from the off compared to the previous events at Knockhill and Donington Park, where he was the on-form driver in the field.

“It was going to be harder with the deficit of TTB,” explained Morgan. “It took me a bit of time in FP1 to get up to speed – the chassis wasn’t quite where I wanted it and I didn’t perform how I wanted to my standard.

“However, we did put some laps together in qualifying, which I was happy with and the car was feeling pretty good.

“In race one, we made a pretty decent call as a team to go out on the hard tyres, get rid of them, and then pit after the green flag lap to put the wets on. We lost a couple of places because of the pit stop, but we got back out and pace was all right.

“In race two, I caught a bit of a damp patch going through the chicane onto the back straight and did a full 360. It was my fault; I was probably a bit too ambitious early on when the track was damp.

“The pace was in the car, and I was frustrated because I think we could have had a top eight result there, had I not done that.

“I was keen to make up for that in race three – I made a good start and avoided all the drama that kicked off in front I saw cars flying off left, right and centre [at Turn 1]. I didn’t know where anybody was.

“I managed to avoid all that, clear the hard tyre runners as quick as I could, and then sort of had to keep Josh at bay for the majority of the race. The pace was strong, so I’m happy to finish like that, but overall, it’s been a testing day.

Morgan is confident for the season run-in at Silverstone and Brands Hatch, as the 37-year-old is expecting the track layouts to play to the strengths of the aerodynamic Mercedes A35.

“Silverstone should play to our strengths, as the car is very aero efficient. We have one second more TTB, which is going to make all the difference in the world!” joked Morgan.

“We’ll have to strategise again, play the long game for the weekend, and see what we can do.

“We’ve got to remember where we started the year to where we are now. We have made huge strides forward.

“Let’s keep the momentum growing, keep pushing forward, and hopefully we can finish top five in the championship.”