BTCC Oulton Park: Ingram dominates Race 1 to end jinx

Ingram, who had given the Excelr8 Motorsport team its maiden BTCC pole on Saturday, had never finished higher than fourth at Oulton, but led all the way in his Hyundai i30 N either side of a safety car.

Rory Butcher got a decent start from the outside of the front row in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla, and there was a brief brush with Ingram before they got to Old Hall with the Hyundai on the inside line.

Within three laps, Ingram had eked the gap out to over a second, and it was up to 1.414s on lap four before the safety car emerged.

Adam Morgan was running fifth in his Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport, but had to defend from Gordon Shedden’s Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R into Lodge.

Contact was made between the two on the exit of the corner, and Morgan’s BMW was fired into the inside barrier at Deer Leap, causing the race to be neutralised.

The race restarted with 10 laps remaining, and Ingram was already 1.299s to the good after one lap.

Now Butcher’s focus was on defending from Ash Sutton, who had made strong progress from fifth on the grid in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus.

This included a fine pass on the second Excelr8 Hyundai of Dan Lloyd, who ran third and set fastest lap in the early stages, before feinting a move on Butcher into the Island hairpin – as Lloyd then moved out wide for the corner, the opportunistic Sutton dived into the gap and completed the move into the Hislops chicane.

Poleman Ingram seized the lead at the start and was never headed

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Sutton’s move on Butcher was even better, and came on the 15th lap of 18. He got a good run out of Old Hall, and drew to the outside through Cascades.

The two raced side by side down to Island, where Sutton appeared incredibly late on the brakes to complete the move – Butcher ran wide on the brakes, and conceded third place to Shedden.

Ingram’s advantage was now 3.046s on Sutton with three laps to go, and neither had a lot of hybrid in this race – Ingram had a seven-lap reduction and Sutton nine.

The gap remained more or less constant, with the Hyundai winning by 3.370s.

“Finally, after however many years of coming here and having struggled…” said Ingram. “Something would always go wrong.

“I’ve got the same car as rolled off the truck yesterday morning. It’s been phenomenal all weekend, and it’s been a pleasure to drive it.”

Behind Sutton, Shedden completed the podium after a charge from eighth on the grid.

Butcher, meanwhile, found himself under pressure from the West Surrey Racing BMW of Colin Turkington, up from ninth on the grid, in the closing stages. The Scot just held on to defeat the Northern Irish four-time champion by 0.100s.

Lloyd ran third early on, but a grassy moment dropped him to seventh

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

A moment onto the grass at Hislops for Lloyd had promoted Turkington and Dan Cammish, and it was the second Motorbase Ford of the last-named that completed the top six ahead of Lloyd.

Championship leader Josh Cook had a quiet race in his BTC Racing Honda to take eighth from the Team Dynamics Civic of Dan Rowbottom, while Ricky Collard completed the top 10 in his Speedworks Toyota.

Title contender Jake Hill had an adventurous race to 13th in his WSR BMW, with numerous instances of contact in the early laps resulting in a crumpled bonnet, and an entertaining piece of tandem side-by-side drifting at Cascades with the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti of Aiden Moffat, who pipped him to 12th behind Stephen Jelley’s WSR BMW.

Results:

Cla	Driver		Time	Gap	Interval
1	Tom Ingram		28'03.964
2	Ashley Sutton		28'07.334	3.370	3.370
3	Gordon Shedden		28'09.128	5.164	1.794
4	Rory Butcher		28'11.171	7.207	2.043
5	Colin Turkington		28'11.271	7.307	0.100
6	Dan Cammish		28'12.212	8.248	0.941
7	Daniel Lloyd		28'12.463	8.499	0.251
8	Josh Cook		28'12.731	8.767	0.268
9	Daniel Rowbottom		28'13.225	9.261	0.494
10	Ricky Collard		28'13.800	9.836	0.575
11	Stephen Jelley		28'13.984	10.020	0.184
12	Aiden Moffat		28'14.597	10.633	0.613
13	Jake Hill		28'15.398	11.434	0.801
14	Michael Crees		28'20.608	16.644	5.210
15	Bobby Thompson		28'21.608	17.644	1.000
16	Aron Taylor-Smith		28'21.834	17.870	0.226
17	Jason Plato		28'23.383	19.419	1.549
18	George Gamble		28'23.640	19.676	0.257
19	Sam Osborne		28'25.073	21.109	1.433
20	Ollie Jackson		28'27.759	23.795	2.686
21	Jade Edwards		28'28.591	24.627	0.832
22	Nicolas Hamilton		28'33.796	29.832	5.205
23	Dexter Patterson		28'33.918	29.954	0.122
24	Jack Butel		28'37.373	33.409	3.455
25	Rick Parfitt Jr.		29'26.808	1'22.844	49.435
	Will Powell		24'26.686	3 Laps	3 Laps
	Ash Hand		16'34.771	8 Laps	5 Laps
	Tom Chilton		6'13.456	14 Laps	6 Laps
	Adam Morgan		4'28.671	15 Laps	1 Lap
View full results