TCR UK Oulton Park

Reigning BTCC Champion Ash Sutton was on dominant form as the brand new TCR UK Championship made its maiden visit to Oulton Park.

Sutton was making his debut in the TCR series, swapping his BTCC Subaru for a Honda Civic in this one-off outing. He proved too much for the TCR UK regulars, winning both races with ease.

Sutton started race one from pole postion, and held the advantage through Old Hall corner ahead of Ollie Taylor and championship leader Dan Lloyd. However the red flags were flying after just one lap of racing following a huge accident between Robert Gilmour’s Alfa Romeo and Carl Swift’s Seat Leon at Island Bend. Both cars would take no further part in the meeting, and there was a long delay whilst extensive damage to the barriers was repaired.

The race was shortened to a 15-minute sprint, and once the action re-started Sutton simply drove away from the rest of field, taking victory by over 16 seconds. Second on the road was the DPE Motorsport Alfa Romeo of Derek Palmer. However, the stewards gave Palmer a 5-second penalty for exceeding track limits after the race, dropping him to fourth. This promoted Dan Lloyd into second, with West Coast Racing team-mate Andreas Backman in third place.

Race two was a carbon copy of race one for Ash Sutton. He inherited pole position after Carl Swift was unable to start due to the damage sustained in race one. Sutton led into Old Hall and was never headed, once again driving away from the rest of the TCR field. Second went to Ollie Taylor in the Pyro Motorsport Honda Civic, followed by Lewis Kent’s Hyundai i30. Dan Lloyd took the flag in fourth place, but ended the meeting with three penalty points on his licence and a five place grid drop at the next round, following contact with Stewart Lines.

Topping the support race bill was a pair of races for the Avon Tyres National Formula Ford Championship. Race one proved to be an easy victory for Niall Murray, taking the flag by over 8-seconds from Michael Eastwell. Third place was taken by Matt Round-Garrido at the head of a very close battle, third to fifth place covered by less than a second at the end of the race.

Race two proved to be a much closer affair, with the top four finishers covered by 0.682 seconds after 15-minutes of racing. Formula Ford veteran Joey Foster emerged on top, followed by Niall Murray and Michael Eastwell. The top-8 all finished with two-seconds of each other after a highly entertaining race.

Tom Walker took victory in the first Milltek Sport VW Racing Cup event of the day, after the race was shortened following a shunt for Martin Depper at Deer Leap. Owen Walton took second with Tom Witts third.

In Race two, Matthew Wilson took the win, followed by Tom Witts and Paul Taylor.

The Nankang Tyres BMW Compact Cup provided some very close racing from their 33 car grid. Ian Jones did the double, winning both races in the face of some stiff competition.

In the Mazda MX-5 SuperCup, Luke Herbert, Jack Harding and Aidan Hills shared the spoils, taking a win each in the day’s three races.

Full results can be found here.

Words and photography by Rich Crawford.