DEREK WARWICK believes an emerging Hampshire racing star can follow him into the Auto Trader British Touring Car Championship - and Rob Collard endorsed the expert's view with another podium finish at Thruxton on Monday.

By Collard's standard third in the Vectra SRI V6 Challenge race fell below his best performances of a new season which has so far seen him win at Donington and lead at Silverstone before being slowed by transmission trouble in the closing stages.

At Thruxton he never got a sniff of victory as Vectra scholarship winner and last year's Ford Fiesta champion Alan Morrison cleared off from pole for a comfortable first place.

But Collard, desperate for sponsorship and anxious to put on a good show in front of a packed gallery, sling-shotted his Vectra from fourth on the grid to second on the track barely three-quarters of the way round the first lap and he had Morrison in his sights.

But not for long. As Dave Pinkney tried to cut inside him going into Thruxton's tricky Complex, both men ended up on the grass and by the time they had their wheels back on the tarmac, Collard was down in fourth place.

From that point on, the 30-year-old driver from Cove in Hampshire was struggling for pace and struggling for grip. He inherited a couple of places when Mark Ticehurst and Jason Yeomans went off at Campbell but Pinkney, forever on his shoulders, had the legs to get by then pull away.

And Collard, who had a moment at the Club Chicane two laps from home when he out-braked himself and had to cut the corner, was happy to hold on to third place with fourth and fifth men gaining on him.

The Hampshire man is racing in the bread-line and ultimately it cost him at Thruxton. He revealed: "I only had one spare set of tyres and in qualifying I outbraked myself and badly blistered my first set."

It meant that for the first time this season he didn't qualify on pole and by half distance in the race itself, his existing tyres were spent. "I just didn't have any grip and I think my early trip through the grass at the Complex effected the suspension. The car didn't feel the same after that."

Collard remains second in the Vectra Challenge and former racing star Warwick believes he has the talent to go on and win the series which carries a prize of a drive in one of the works Vauxhall Vectras next year.

"I told Rob last year that if he wanted to race in touring cars he would have to switch from single-seater racing which he has done with excellent results," said Warwick.

"But if he is going to win the Vectra Challenge he'll need a good budget to stay competitive and I understand he's already struggling on that score which is a shame particularly so if it costs him the title."

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