Goff aiming to convert pole into opening win

WIX Racing's Jack Goff has set sights on converting his pole position into winning the opening British Touring Car Championship race of the season at Brands Hatch.

Having claimed pole position during the final two rounds of 2017, Goff made it three-in-a-row during yesterday's qualifying session after successfully replicating his promising practice form.

Goff produced a 48.038s lap, which was good enough to deny Motorbase Performance's Sam Tordoff pole position by 0.093s following a closely fought battle.

Although starting from the head of the field, Goff had looked set to emerge from the 30-minute shootout in second. The 27-year old spent the first half of the session playing second fiddle to the factory Honda of Dan Cammish.

However, Goff moved into the ascendency after Cammish saw his time deleted after committing a pit-lane infringement during the session.

"Qualifying is one thing but racing tomorrow [Sunday] is another matter," Goff told Crash.net. "We are leading the championship currently, which is nice! So we'll take that for tonight but I'm fully aware we've got two BMWs behind so we need to keep and eye on them at the start.

"We've got to try and get off the line, get through the first few laps and manage our tyres, that will be key. We'll see where we end up but I feel pretty confident. The car is good."

With each of the top-12 finishers now subject of the reverse grid draw in race three this season, Goff believes that new variable will place a further importance on securing 'three solid finishes' throughout the day.

"It'll be nice to go out there and get the first win under our belts on the first weekend. If we can't do that, we'll aim for three solid results. That's really key this year with the top-12 being reversed," Goff continued.

"It's going to be really important to make sure we get three decent results, rather than settling for a good first and second race. It's key to make sure you consolidate points and we've got to make sure we get a big score at the end of the weekend."

Having switched engine partners from Swindon to Neil Brown Engineering over the winter, Goff admitted his pride in silencing the critics by proving the Eurotech prepared Honda Civic Type-R can still fight at the top without the Swindon TOCA engine.

"Last year there was a lot of people saying 'you only got pole because you had a Swindon engine in the car'. To be able to come out here and prove we can still get pole with the Neil Brown engine is really good," the Honda driver continuned.

"It's testament to Eurotech and Neil Brown."