After a solid debut for his new Arkas Racing with Sunshine.co.uk team at Brands Hatch, Barrow-upon-Humber racer Martyn Bell will hope to make further progress this weekend [12/13 April] as the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship heads to Rockingham for the second round of the year.

The season opener marked the first time that Martyn has raced with front-wheel drive, and after being forced to retire from race one after contact from one his rivals, he secured two solid finishes at the wheel of his Tech-Speed run Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch as he continued to come to terms with the move from rear-wheel drive.

Having performed well in his first meeting with the Astra, Martyn will now aim to make further progress at Rockingham this weekend, although he will be keen to avoid the disappointment he suffered at the Northamptonshire venue last season.

Then, he was caught up in a multi-car accident in the second race of the weekend and was forced out of race three by a mechanical issue, but the popular Independent runner is confident of an upturn in fortune this time around.

“I had back luck at Rockingham last year, so I feel we are due some good luck this time around,” he said. “Having been a bit under the weather at Brands Hatch, I’m also feeling a bit better in myself now as well, so I hope we can pick up three solid finishes during the weekend.

“Rockingham is quite a tricky circuit to set the car up for as you need to make sure you are competitive on the long run round the banking to the first corner but are also competitive when you get into the twisty stuff on the in-field. We’ll work on getting the set-up right during practice and qualifying and get some good data that we can use to help us progress on race day.”

Martyn added that he was enjoying working alongside new team-mate Erkut Kizilirmak, with the two drivers focused on pushing the team towards its goal of points finishes as the season goes on.

“At Brands Hatch, I enjoyed my racing more than I’ve enjoyed it for a while and when you are enjoying it, you start to go faster,” he continued. “I’m enjoying working with the team and working with Erkut and I feel there is more to come from us both. Hopefully we can push each other on and work together to move forwards.

“I’m confident that we will continue to get quicker and I have my targets for who I want to beat this weekend.”