After only two rounds of the British Touring Car Championship, Tom Onslow-Cole’s limited time behind the wheel has already yielded 21 points.

Despite only getting behind the wheel of his VW Passat CC on the eve of the last month’s first round at Brands Hatch, the New Malden driver took on Donington Park last weekend to claim a 13th, 10th and sixth place finish.

However, although the super-fast improvement in the car’s performance levels has surprised Onslow-Cole and his Team Hard engineers, they are now faced with the “deep and dark technical issues” to take it to the next level.

And with only two weeks between races, Onslow-Cole knows it will be difficult to maintain the current pace of development.

“At Brands, we were 1.8 seconds off the pole time around a 48-second lap, whereas at Donington we were only a second off on a 70-second lap – so we’ve made huge gains,” he said.

“The team are on a high. To have three finishes in the points, a top 10 and a top six, in only the second weekend of the car is incredible.

“It is not even a month old yet. The car was naturally quick at Brands, and although we had teething issues, and the development is going very well.

“We have done a lot so far and it is going to be difficult to maintain this sort of pace of development as things get trickier.”

The 25-year-old’s team spent much of the practice sessions at Donington Park working on correcting the NGTC car’s suspension set-up and geometry.

However, Onslow-Cole, who sits 13th in the BTCC standings, says those aspects are easier to rectify than the issues they now face ahead of the next meeting at Thruxton.

“Component changes such as springs and suspension set-up are relatively easy, but now we’re starting to get into the deep and dark technical issues.

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The man behind the wheel: Tom Onslow-Cole is enjoying a VW Passet CC which is in the fast lane of development   Picture: Keith Hubbleday

“These are the issues that require serious engineering through the design of new parts and a better understanding of the car. It starts to get trickier now, but there are a lot of gains to be had.”

Before the Donington Park meeting, Onslow-Cole called it his favourite circuit, and now he heads to his second favourite in Thruxton.

He said: “I like the fast flowing circuits and there is nothing faster than Thruxton in this country.

“It is going to be a great track and we were actually quite strong over high-speed sections at Donington, which bodes well for Thruxton.

“On the flip side we were not so good in the bumpier sections and coming off the kerb, and Thruxton is a very old circuit and it is very bumpy. That is something we need to work on.”

The Thruxton meeting takes place over the Bank Holiday weekend.