CHELSFIELD driver Shaun Hollamby returns to action in the British touring car championship on August 8 following the mid-season break.

An official test session was held at Snetterton last Thursday where Hollamby’s AmD Milltek Racing.com team took their Volkswagen Golf along to evaluate a number of developments made since the last round at Croft.

“Croft was our best weekend of the year so far,” said Hollamby.

“The feeling amongst the whole team to go away from Croft with a straight car, two race finishes, much improved pace and doubling our points tally in the independent team Ccass was brilliant.”

However, the Golf has been dogged by a lack of straight line speed all season and the break has afforded the team an opportunity to rectify the problem.

“On the Tuesday after Croft, we ran the car on the rolling road at AmD’s Lakeside base,” explained Hollamby.

“The figures showed us running 245bhp, compared to 300bhp of the leaders.

“Considering we were two seconds a lap off the pace at Croft, but were losing eight to 10mph down the straights, it means that with similar power to the leaders, we will be getting much closer to our mid-field target.”

The engine was returned to Lehman, Liechtenstein, for a re-build and a return to pre-Croft power levels.

It was back in time for AmD Milltek Racing.com to put it through its paces at Thursday’s test at Snetterton.

Hollamby said: “The testing restrictions in the BTCC mean that this was our first test session of the year.

“We made a myriad of set-up changes to which the Golf responded well and which allowed us to set times ahead of cars that we normally struggle to match on outright pace.

“We ended the morning session just over two seconds off the front running pace of the works Chevrolet and, more importantly, ahead of the Forster BMWs and Boulevard’s Vauxhall, which bodes well for the rest of the season.”

Heavy rain during the afternoon session prevented any further improvement in lap times.

He added: “Snetterton was always going to be our least competitive circuit due to its high speed nature, which favours cars with the most horsepower.

“But we improved our speed trap figures and our other developments will become more apparent on circuits where horsepower isn't such an important factor.”