Team Aon boss Mike Earle reckons his drivers Tom Chilton and Alan Morrison are now in a position to challenge for top ten points finishes more often than not in their heavily revised Ford Focus STs.

The cars showed a much greater turn of speed last time out at Donington Park and Earle is hopeful the gap to the leading contenders can come down even further in this weekend’s round of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park.

Earle, a former Formula 1 team boss, said: “The whole team did a great job to move forward between Thruxton and Donington and the philosophy of hard work has continued since Donington as well.

“Tom managed to score our first points of the season there and I honestly feel that with the latest developments that both Tom and Alan should be able to go for points scoring finishes in all the races now.

“Obviously we hope that the performance will be even better than that, but we won’t know for sure until practice at Oulton.”

Most notably at Donington, both Focuses sported revised rear wings to improve stability, while there also was enhanced engine performance. For Oulton, Earle explained, there have been yet more developments.

He added: “The rear of the car is working a lot better now, but we haven’t just left it at that. We have learnt from Donington and improved the aerodynamics of the car even further.

“We have also introduced some developments that we have been working on as well as continuing the engine improvements we saw at the previous rounds. So the team is optimistic and looking forward to Oulton Park.”