Dan Cammish inherited British Touring Car Championship qualifying race victory at Oulton Park after on-the-road winner Aron Taylor-Smith was penalised for a restart infringement.
Taylor-Smith was a surprise polesitter – his first in the BTCC for 11 years, and only his second in total – and his Speedworks Motorsport-run Laser Tools Toyota Corolla GR Sport led from lights to flag.
But the Dubliner was pinged five seconds for weaving on the approach to Lodge Corner after the lights had gone out on the safety car, relegating him to fifth in the final results.
The cause of the safety car was Nic Hamilton, who crashed his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback at the Island hairpin on the second lap.
Cammish did an excellent job in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium to keep Taylor-Smith on his toes throughout, given he had access to just seven seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost to the maximum 20s of Taylor-Smith.
Josh Cook’s Toyota from the sister Speedworks stable to Taylor-Smith’s also had the full whack of 20s per lap of TTB, and it was the West Countryman who rose to challenge Cammish over the latter stages of the race.
Cook had just about emerged in front from a hectic scrap with Ash Sutton following the safety car to home in on the leading duo, and got close enough to Cammish to try around the outside of the hairpin with three and a half laps remaining.
Tom Ingram, Team VERTU
Photo by: JEP
He didn’t quite have enough for the other Ford, and Cammish crossed the line 0.301s in front of Cook for first and second places respectively.
“A great way to start the weekend – the guys have given me a great car,” said Cammish. “It’s a shame what happened to Aron. I was going, ‘Aron, look back, remember!’ But I’ll take my opportunity. I said to the team, ‘What do you want me to do?’ because I knew he might get a penalty. But I probably would have struggled to overtake him. We’ve got the legs on them, but you can’t make up for it when they press [the TTB] and I can’t.”
Title heavyweights Sutton and Tom Ingram also moved up ahead of Taylor-Smith to third and fourth respectively in the results.
Ingram’s Excelr8 Hyundai, with just 3s per lap of TTB, gave the Alliance Ford of Sutton (1s per lap TTB) a hefty thwack at Lodge Corner at mid-distance, sending Sutton wide and almost costing the four-time champion several places. But Sutton somehow only lost the one position to Ingram, who then quickly moved over to redress his ill-gotten gains.
Once news of Taylor-Smith’s penalty came through, it seemed that the duo were holding station to avoid falling out of the 5s window to the race-leading Toyota, and they finished with Sutton extending his championship advantage from 57 points to 58.
Behind them, Mikey Doble came out best from a hectic scrum for sixth, his Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon having been forced onto the grass at Druids early on after what appeared to be light contact from Ingram.
Doble led home Adam Morgan (Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon), the PMR Audis of Dexter Patterson and Aiden Moffat, and the Restart Racing Hyundai of Chris Smiley, who was overlapping Moffat as they crossed the finish line.
BTCC Oulton Park – Qualifying race results
Results to follow
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– The Autosport.com Team
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