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<body> <Table Width="550" border="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" cellpadding="0"><TR><TD Width="35"><IMG SRC="//www.totalmotorsport.com/images/spacer.gif" WIDTH="35" HEIGHT="1"></td><td> <CENTER><Table border="0" width="100%"> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="5">BTCC</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="left"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="2">05/09/2001</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="4">Tim Blake Explains</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><B><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="3">The Lexus Changes</FONT></B></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><img border="1" src="Storage/ainsThe%20BTC.jpg"></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="center"><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="1">  </FONT></TD></TR> <TR><TD width="100%" align="left"><FONT FACE="Tahoma" SIZE="2">Tim Blake took on an ambitious project with the Lexus IS200 in the BTCC this year. Despite numerous problems, his team have turned into consistent leaders of the ‘post-Vauxhall’ group. Here he answers questions from the Editor to explain the events of the last few weeks.<BR> <BR> Who is running the car now?<BR> <BR> "GA Janspeed are looking after it, as of the Oulton Park meeting. That was a fraught weekend, but we still came out of it with two finishes and complete race reliability, so it wasn’t that bad. We had teething troubles there, but a test at Pembrey this week has left us all very optimistic for Silverstone.<BR> <BR> "The team are now known as TotalMotorSport Racing, but we still have some outstanding issues to be resolved with the team that used to run it." <BR> <BR> What about the second car? There was hope at Croft that you’d have that one out by now.<BR> <BR> "It’s been immensely frustrating. The second chassis is months behind, we’ve been let down repeatedly over completion dates, basically we’ve been dumped at the back of the queue, which is ironic bearing in mind the price we’ve been expected to pay – for work that hasn’t been finished. We’ve got that chassis at GA Janspeed now, but the delays now mean that we’re looking at 2002 to run two cars.<BR> <BR> "The real frustration is that it was always planned as a two car team, and there’s been no shortage of drivers wanting to get in it."<BR> <BR> You can’t have been anything but impressed with Tommy Erdos?<BR> <BR> "Since Tommy took over at Knockhill, we’ve made real progress with the car. That obviously didn’t show at Oulton Park last time out, because of problems over availablity of components. You wouldn’t believe how far I drove to get enough equipment to run the car at all. We’re back to where we wanted to be now though: we’re set up properly for Silverstone – both the car and the team."<BR> <BR> You’ve been testing at Pembrey this week. How has that gone?<BR> <BR> "Extremely well. That’s all we’ve needed since Tommy got in the car – a decent test. He’s worked round any problems in the car, but has been testing it at the races, which is far from ideal. Knowing that, look how well he’s done so far. We’ve not had a podium yet, but we’ve had a string of fourth places, and we’ve almost always been ahead of the Peugeots. We might have to face up to a challenge from them for the rest of the season, but we’re up to it.<BR> <BR> "As a guide to how we’ve been tackling race meetings, we even changed the springs during the red flag period in Qualifying at Knockhill."<BR> <BR> Are you looking forward to next year?<BR> <BR> "Of course. We’ll have the cars built in plenty of time, we’ll be able to test before the start of the season, we’ll have a year’s experience – and we’ll be after those Vauxhalls."<BR> <BR> <BR> </FONT></TD></TR> </TABLE><BR> </CENTER> <BR><CENTER><font size="1" color="#808080" face="Tahoma">Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport</font></CENTER> </td> </tr> </table> </body>