Thompson expects strong end to year

The former BTCC champion has had little track time away from the races to develop the car, but he believes that the N.Technology team have made good progress in the first half of the season.

"We've done one and a half days of testing all year, so we've done our testing on race weekends," Thompson told autosport.com.

"The further it gets into the season, the more we know about the car. Plus, we always thought, looking at the calendar, that we would have a strong finish so it was important to develop the car in the early part of the season."

Thompson won two races at Valencia earlier in the year, and in the last two race weekends at Anderstorp and Oschersleben he has scored more points than anyone else.

He is currently 22 points adrift of championship leader Augusto Farfus, but he believes that he can haul himself into contention for the title by the time the series reaches Macau in November.

"If we can get the gap down to 14 or 15 points going into the last round, then I think that would be a really good job," he added.

"With what we've got, which is effectively a two-year-old car, that's our goal. If we can win one more race this season, and still be in with a chance of the title at Macau, then that would be a great achievement by the team."