Herbert targeting victory on debut
Johnny Herbert says he is targeting a race victory on his British Touring Car debut at Silverstone this weekend
The former grand prix driver is replacing James Thompson in a Team Dynamics Honda Civic for the final three rounds of the season, and tested the car at Pembrey on Monday ahead of his first race event.
When asked about what result he'd be satisfied with at Silverstone, Herbert said: "A win is the only thing. I'd love to win. That would be my goal, and if I did that it would be brilliant and probably surprise a lot of people - myself included.
"If not, then a podium would still be a massive achievement. My main thing is that I want to be competitive, I don't want to be near the back end. I'm aware of how tight the grid will be but I hope after what we did in the test I can be competitive throughout the weekend."
Herbert is expecting the contact side of touring car racing to be an area he needs to learn quickly.
"There's obviously a lot of contact which makes the racing very exciting," he said. "I've not really been used to contact in the categories I've raced in and it's not something I was very good at when I was in karting, so I need to be very aware of where other drivers are and aren't on the track.
"You go into it like every other weekend and want to be competitive or you wouldn't bother, but you need to be very aware of what is happening and try to get yourself in a position where you're not going to fall victim to others around you."
He believes that he made significant strides with the car in the Pembrey test, following his first drive of the car at Rockingham, and believes he will start the Silverstone weekend in good shape.
"It gave me a chance to change the car, which I didn't get a chance to at Rockingham when I first tested it. Then the car felt nervous at the front, so the aim of this test was to calm it down.
"There's still a lot of work still to be done - I'm still learning it - but at end of the day the test has given me the chance to really start finding out about it.
"We tried things that didn't work and things that did. The main thing was trying to find changes with the set-up of the car so it will suit my style and I think we've managed that."
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