Almost unbelievably we are now over halfway through the season, having just completed round five at the brilliant 2.69 mile (4.33 km) circuit that is Oulton Park! The event was run on the International loop without the Hislops chicane; giving the drivers plenty of opportunity to stretch the legs of their Audi RS3’s. Oulton Park is located in Cheshire, England and having been in use for more than 60 years it has gathered a reputation for being the country’s toughest test for both car and driver. The track regularly plays host to rounds of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, the ever-popular British F3/GT event and of course the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship. Terje Flåten is still heading the drivers championship but with Dan Mould closing in at Oran Park it’s all to play for in the second half of the season!
qualifying
The qualifying section of the race report is almost becoming a copy and paste now, yet again Luminous Racing driver Terje Flåten has put his Audi TCR onto pole position, now making that four races in a row! 1:39.402 was the time that not one of the other twenty seven drivers could beat. To keep things consistent, Damien Owen Harris from Fiercely Forward has now managed to put his car onto the front row three times in as many races, but that first pole position is still to come. The rest of the top five was full of Impulse Racing drivers with Martijn Asschert starting the race from third, Christopher Emms in fourth and Jan Böhl in P5. The Impulse team have done all they can to set themselves up nicely for what could be a heap of points in the teams championship.
race One
Both Terje Flåten and Damien Owen Harris managed to get of the line well, a slow start from the Impulse drivers left Jan Böhl with some fairly hard defending to be done before even reaching turn one however the top five remained the same off of the line. VBTCR newcomer Mats Borge Andersen got straight into some proper touring car racing spending the first few corners side by side with Dan Mould resulting in a battle that would last the first few laps. Jan Böhl was unlucky enough to be nudged out wide at Shell Oils corner, sending the Impulse driver all the way down to seventeenth position. There were no real big movers on the opening lap but Tom Holland did well in getting up to twenty fifth position after starting down in last place.
James Birch was the first victim of the Britten’s chicane tyre stack, just trying to cut a bit too close but ultimately making contact and forcing him to tow back to the pit lane. Duncan Marais was sat just a few tenths of a second behind James and did what he could to avoid the out of control Audi but also ended up with a large amount of damage.
The remainder of the race was full of great battles all the way through the field, one highlight was that of Shane Dunn and Scott Malcolm. Scott was within half a second of Shane for around ten of the twenty minute long race, a stellar defence from Shane meant that Scott just couldn’t find a way past but it was great racing to watch from both drivers.
In the closing stages Jan Böhl’s race just went from bad to worse, picking up a drive through penalty for exceeding the incident limit of the race; arguably very unlucky due to the contact received in the opening lap of the race. The biggest controversy was saved for the last lap of the race however, in a move that gave us all flashbacks of ‘that Honda crash’ from 2011 in BTCC, Damien Own Harris sent his Audi up the inside of Terje Flåten at Lodge Corner, making contact but taking the lead. Both drivers managed to avoid the gravel trap (unlike Neal and Shedden), however Terje dropped down to third as a result. Martijn Asschert was there to pick up the pieces and claim second place.
race two - reverse grid race
Race two at Oulton Park could be described in many ways… eventful, chaotic or for the spectators, entertaining and that’s all applicable before the drivers even got to turn one! After picking up damage and dropping a lap down in race one, James Birch would of been hopeful for a turnaround result in race two, especially when starting on pole in the reverse grid. His hopefulness was short lived though after a very slow start, other opportunistic drivers were scrambling left, right and centre to gain some positions. Will Martin and Duncan Marais were the first two drivers to make contact, which ordinarily would’ve ended up with both drivers continuing but being on the starting grid the chaos that entailed wouldn’t of been predicted by anyone. With almost half of the grid being caught up in the accident, drivers had to navigate their way out of the mess by taking to the grass, towing back and some drivers even having to reverse out of it. It was not the start that any of us wanted to see and one we are hopeful to never see again.
After this the race was of three kinds, those drivers who were trying their best to get their damaged cars back to the pits to begin repairs, the drivers who decided to continue with the damage they had been given those that managed to avoid the carnage and make the most of the opportunity they’d been presented with. Christopher Smith, Tom Holland and Jan Böhl were the three who managed to escape any contact and shoot off up the road best. After the disappointment of race on, Jan was quick to make the most of the opportunity by dispatching Tom and Chris by the start of lap two, from here on the Impulse driver was untouchable, taking the win by a gap of over seven seconds!
Christopher Smith drover a superb race to earn himself second place and his best result of the season so far whilst Mats Borge Anderson got up onto the podium for the TC Motortsport drivers first race meeting. With Jan’s win and Martijn Asschert coming home in sixth it was another good race for the Impulse Racing team, outscoring their main championship rivals once again.
summary
Martijn Asschert had the race meeting he was hoping for, being the biggest points scorer of the evening and promoting himself up into second place in the drivers standings. Terje Flåten is still topping the table but with Martijn, Dan Mould and Shane Dunn now in hot pursuit and this week showing that absolutely anything can happen in the VBTCR Championship, it’s very much still all to play for.
Impulse Racing have once again extended their lead at the top of the teams championship and with drivers from Ignium Motorsport unfortunately dropping out of the championship, Luminous Racing and Spud Motorsport have taken the second and third positions after this weeks points haul. The ever so consistent Jack Newell is continuing to hold his place as the top rookie driver and with Dom Cottenham helping to keep Simpli Digi Racing well up into the top ten of the teams standings, this season is shaping up well for the all rookie team.
Keep an eye out in this weeks broadcast for more information on the upcoming Joker round in just under a months time and find out how you can help decide which track the drivers will be heading to! As always, make sure to come back in two weeks time to see how all the drivers fair as we head to Snetterton!
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