TURKINGTON
REACHES A LANDMARK AS TEMPERS FRAY AT OULTON PARK
CHAMPION IS KING OF THE BTCC AS ON-TRACK BATTLES BOIL OVER
Oulton Park is traditionally a rear-wheel-drive circuit and so it was a venue that WSR BMW, the reigning teams’ champion, was looking forward to tackling. In 2018, its cars won two of the three races on the 2.2-mile track and Colin Turkington, who would go on to lift the crown, won one of them.
This year, he improved on that with two victories to stretch his advantage at the head of the standings to 33 points. Worryingly for everyone else on the grid, the man who has leapt up to second in the points chart is WSR’S Andrew Jordan after two more podiums.
Between them, the two BMW 330i M Sport drivers have won nine of the 15 races held so far.
The third race in Cheshire was full of drama as Jake Hill in his Trade Price
Cars Racing Audi was stripped of a maiden win for early contact with Matt Neal’s Team Dynamics Honda. That handed Stephen Jelley the triumph in his Team Parker Racing BMW 125i M Sport.
It was a tempestuous end to a meeting where people were left wondering how on earth anyone is going to haul back the dominant WSR motors.
Race one
The foundations for Turkington’s opening race win were set in qualifying, with a truly stunning lap that put him at the head of the pack. Although the BMW man had set a time just 0.027s faster than Sam Tordoff in the Amdtuning.com Honda Civic Type R, the Northern Irishman had done it with a full load of 54kg of success ballast aboard the 330i M Sport.
Dan Cammish took his Team
Dynamics Honda Civic to third place alongside Jordan’s WSR BMW.
Both Tordoff and Cammish knew that the onslaught on the run to the opening corner was coming. The rear-wheel-drive cars have a start advantage due to the format of the drivetrain.
For Turkington, the launch he got was one of his best to jump into Old Hall metres ahead of the battling pack behind.
“I have been working on my getaways, because I felt that was an area I could improve,” said Turkington afterwards. “We used to have [rival driver] Rob Collard in this team, and he was ace at starts. We had the data and it was just a question of looking at it and trying to learn as much as I could from his style.”
The weight on the car meant that Turkington knew he couldn’t relax for a moment. “I wanted to get a gap early on,” he said. “The full ballast on the car meant it was moving around a lot and
I was trying to anticipate what it was going to do at each corner. It wasn’t an easy race, by any means.”
It was interrupted for a safety car as the Team Dynamics Honda of Neal suffered a curious incident at Druids when the front-left wheel came adrift, pitching him into the tyre wall on lap five. Turkington, who was on the softer option tyres, controlled the restart and again got into his rhythm to build his advantage back, and eventually crossed the line just over two seconds clear.
“I think we can work on the chassis between races one and two and we can make it even stronger for the second race,” added the winner.
Those were ominous words for his rivals. Chief among them in the opener was Cammish. After Tordoff had made a sluggish getaway – which left him down in fifth and staring at the bootlid of the sister Honda of Rory Butcher – it was left to Cammish and Jordan to go toe-to-toe around Old Hall. There was the briefest of touches between the pair and it was the Honda that emerged ahead.
After that, Cammish pushed as hard as he could but there was no way he could rein in the leader. “It is almost like the BMW has a seventh gear ratio that we don’t have,” said the second-place finisher. “I am pleased though, because I think we got everything from that race that we could expect and I am finishing ahead of guys in the championship that I am battling with.”
He had kept Jordan at arm’s length throughout. The Pirtek-backed driver, also using the softer tyres, said Cammish’s robust defence at Old Hall was exactly what he would have done had the positions been reversed.
“I was trying to look after the rubber,” explained Jordan. “I didn’t know how the soft tyres were going to last so I was trying not to take too much out of them, but there was not a lot I could do about Dan in front.”
Behind Butcher and Tordoff, who both banked solid points despite the latter regretting a set-up change from qualifying, was Tom Oliphant in the third WSR BMW 330i Sport.
Tom Ingram was having great fun looking in his mirrors at the battle for eighth spot behind him. Firstly, Jason Plato had his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra all over the Speedworks Toyota Corolla, but the old master was then forced to look to his mirrors too as Ash Sutton (BMR Racing Subaru Levorg) joined the party.
Sutton attempted to unseat Plato at the Island hairpin, and it almost worked on the run down to Knickerbrook, but the Vauxhall got into the back of the Levorg and it was forced wide.
That dropped Sutton to 10th as an opportunistic Adam Morgan got his Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes-benz A-class in front. However, Sutton was not done yet and when he tried a last-minute move at Cascades on lap 13 to retake ninth spot, he tagged the back of his rival ahead. Morgan was out with damaged suspension, while Sutton continued.
Morgan was sanguine afterwards: “I know Ash is not that sort of driver, but that has ruined my weekend. These things keep happening to me.”
Sutton, for his part, said it was a tiny misunderstanding: “I looked to go down the inside of Morgan but he moved left just as I went for the move. It was the slightest of touches, but it was unfortunate.”
Sutton eventually lunged inside Plato and restored himself to eighth, but it was at a cost. The stewards looked at the incident with Morgan afterwards and Sutton was hit with a five-place grid penalty for race two.
Behind Plato in ninth, the top 10 was completed by Ollie Jackson (Motorbase Performance Ford Focus), who had capitalised as Hill slipped back with the tricky handling of his car.
Race two
The scene at the front of the race two grid was pretty similar to the first, but there was added pressure on Turkington’s main rivals. As well as the reigning champion’s threat to unlock more from the chassis, those around him were now also forced to carry the big weight.
There was also the thorny issue of the softer option tyre, which most racers had opted to run in race two, believing it would be a better prospect in the higher temperature of the second clash.
All three of the WSR BMWS in the top eight would start on the medium tyres, and Jackson as well. Everyone else in the first four rows had softs.
Much like everyone had thought – including Turkington – race two was a walk in the park. The polesitter again got the perfect slingshot into Old Hall stretching clear. Jordan, this time, made it to second place. He leapfrogged Cammish before the cars turned into the opening right-hander, with Oliphant making it three BMWS in the top four.
An immediate safety car period was prompted to clear up Jack Goff ’s Team Hard VW CC and Chris Smiley’s BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R. Goff had been hit in the rear by Smiley’s team-mate Josh Cook going into the braking zone for the hairpin, and that sent him into the grass and into the totally innocent Smiley.
After five laps of caution, Turkington again got the hammer down. Even when there was further two tours of slow running to clear up Sam Osborne’s battered MG from the Old Hall tyre wall, the leader remained unflustered to land his 50th career BTCC victory.
“There are very few times that a car feels absolutely perfect,” beamed Turkington afterwards. “You can have wins, but it is rare that you cross the line and you think you have got absolutely everything out of it. That is the feeling I had in that race, and it is really special. These cars are tricky to drive at the best of times but that was a great feeling.”
Jordan wasn’t as delighted with second place, and was even scratching his head a bit about how Turkington was able to have the edge on him. Jordan had been involved in an accident in the free practice session on Saturday, and said that maybe that could have been a part of it.
“I lost track time, and that was my fault,” he explained. “But I just don’t seem to be able to get the front and rear axle working together as well as Colin has here. I hate coming second, but he probably hated coming second to me at Croft. It is nip and tuck between us.”
Cammish was again following the bootlid of a 330i M Sport as he claimed a second podium of the weekend, but this time he was closer to the rear of Jordan’s machine than he had been Turkington’s.
“Being able to see the BMWS at that close at quarters, I was able to work out where they are so strong,” said Cammish. “There really is nothing I can do about them, but at least I am top of class B at the moment – or should that be class H for Honda.”
Behind Oliphant was lonesome Tordoff, while one of the most impressive
performers of the race was Jelley in his Team Parker Racing car.
He had started 10th (after Sutton’s penalty) but sliced his way though a closely-battling pack at the bottom end of the leading order.
As Plato dislodged Jackson from eighth going into Old Hall, Jelley snuck through on his bootlid and then he outdragged Plato over the start-finish line on lap 13. Three laps later, he sprung sixth place rom Butcher with a bold move down he inside into the opening right-hander on the lap.
Behind Butcher, Ingram’s car was battered on lap one and he managed to drag the remains of the Corolla across he line in eighth place, ahead of Plato and Cook, who had clambered up from 7th on the grid to the top 10. Neal, who had started 29th, hauled the Team Dynamics car up to 11th after passing Hill ust before the second safety car period. Hill would not have been too bothered about the overtake: Motorsport Vision rack boss Jonathan Palmer picked he number 12 out of the reserved grid draw bowl.
That was as much of a boost for Hill and Neal as it was a blow for Turkington, who had the lowest possible starting slot he could have had in his quest for a victory ock-out at Oulton.
The race had a sting in the tail for the Excelr8 MG team. After Osborne’s dramatic exit, worse was to follow as Rob Smith, who had been scrapping for 23rd position with Team Hard VW CC driver Michael Crees, was pitched into the wall hard on the exit of Lodge and was lucky not to roll his MG6 – but he was out for the est of the day.
There was also a bitter aftertaste for Cook, who was given a five-place grid penalty for his lap-one move, which took him from a possible third-placed starting spot in race three to eighth.
Race three
It was only the lightest of touches, but one which led to huge rancour and a late night for the officials of the meeting.
Hill, on his first pole position in the BTCC, had a great launch to keep ahead of the Honda of Neal into the braking zone for Old Hall, even though the Civic was virtually alongside. Although he held sway, the Kent driver was under some serious pressure from the three-time champion, and crossed the line at the end of the first lap just 0.3s clear.
Neal made his intentions obvious with a stab at first place at the Island hairpin. The two made contact and Neal was firmly rebuffed. Hill came out of the 180 degree corner on the inside and defended the line all the way down to Hislops.
At the end of the lap, Neal got better traction out of Lodge and, as the field snaked onto lap two, went down the inside of Hill into Old Hall, and was ahead by the exit .
Hill didn’t want to let his rival escape and tried himself to get the cut-back on the exit of the corner. The left front of the Audi touched the rear right of the Type R and Neal was sent spinning down the Avenue with the onrushing pack homing in on a cloud of tyre smoke and dust (see racing news).
Hill had escaped but the following Plato and Ingram were unsighted and both took to the grass on the left hand side of the track. It ruined both of their races and inadvertently caused even more bother for those behind in the queue too.
Plato takes up the story: “We have seen the damage side-impacts can do, so maybe I over-reacted a little. I jinked to the left on the grass and it was like a quagmire. It sucked me off and into the grass and it made the car dig in and bounce, and that ripped the bottom from the engine.”
He switched the Vauxhall’s motor off before he had got to Cascades, but limped up to the Island hairpin. By that stage, the surface was covered with fluid which accounted for Smiley and Cammish, who took to the escape road.
By the time the dust had literally settled, Hill was left with a 5.9-second advantage from the fifth, sixth and seventh placed starters Butcher, Jelley and Tordoff. Oliphant managed to unseat Tordoff on lap 13 with a great move at Old Hall to clamber up to fourth, but the attention was focused at the front of the field.
Butcher was slicing chunks off Hill’s buffer in the lead. By lap 13, the two were running in line astern with Butcher only 0.2s in arrears. But the Scot made the smallest of errors.
He knew about the fluid slick that was running the length of Lakeside and into the Island hairpin, but felt that the coolant on the track had been drying over the closing laps. “I ran slightly wider on the outside on the way into the corner on the lap before, and the grip was OK,” said Butcher, who was trying to size up a move for the lead at one of the favoured passing spots. “I went maybe a foot wider on the next tour and, as soon as I touched the brakes, it was like ice – I simply couldn’t slow it down.”
As he gathered up the moment, Jelley and Oliphant had slipped through to second and third. Try as he might, there was no time for Jelley to zero in on Hill and the Audi man won. On the road, at least, before the officials slapped him with a 20-second penalty on his race time and pushed him down to 14th.
Jelley, therefore, inherited his third career BTCC win and sealed Team Parker Racing’s first. “I feel sorry for Jake, that is not the way I wanted it to end for him, but I will take the win. Hell yes!” he said.
Oliphant was promoted to second and Tordoff reinstalled in third. The ballasted BMW of Jordan also finished ahead of Butcher, while Cook restored some pride and kept his points tally ticking over with sixth.
The hero of the day, Turkington, had uncharacteristically been outfoxed in the heat of the battle in the lower end of the top 10 as he tried to unseat Cook. That allowed Sutton, who had been delayed in race two with contact, to overtake.
Behind the BMW man, Aiden Moffat (Laser Tools Racing Mercedes-benz A-class) and Morgan rounded out the top 10 to at least rescue something positive from the weekend in Cheshire.