How Shedden proved his class with 'inspiring' BTCC Oulton Park win

If you’re looking for the definition of a popular British Touring Car Championship race win, then you should have been at Oulton Park last Sunday.

Gordon Shedden hadn’t taken a victory in modern motor racing since June 2022, midway through his last BTCC season before his two-year exile in the wake of Team Dynamics’ pullout. But there the 46-year-old Scot was, drinking it in on the top step of the podium, the local-to-Oulton Speedworks Motorsport crew ecstatic after what had been a pretty miserable season to date. 

No one could have predicted it. Shedden’s weekend had started in time-honoured 2025 ‘you couldn’t make this up’ fashion. All three of his hot laps in the opening segment of qualifying had been deleted due to his Toyota Corolla GR Sport exceeding track limits, so he would have to start race one from the very back of the grid. But the thing was, there was a delay in the expunging of the first of those until a second or two before he completed his second. And, by the time the bad news got through, he may well have already offended on his third. 

“I was minutes down the road before anything came,” he grumbled. “I went to ask, and they said you trigger the sensor, then they go to the footage, and they just took forever to look at it. All this technology and they can’t even put it on the dashboard of the car that you’ve got a warning. What can you do? If I know instantly, I’ll do something different.” 

So, with engineer Steve Brady, the obvious choice of sacrificing race one in order to get rid of the hard tyre for the rest of Sunday was made. On the red-walled mediums, he came home just outside the points in 16th but, encouragingly, he’d lapped just 0.007 seconds slower than the similarly hard-tyred Alliance Racing Ford Focus of Dan Rowbottom, who was third in the championship coming into the weekend. 

Shedden’s first salvo on the soft rubber then took him to ninth in race two, despite a clash with Charles Rainford that sent the BMW into the barriers, and fourth fastest race lap. Then the number nine was pulled out in the reversed grid draw. Pole, no TOCA Turbo Boost restriction, the next two cars on the grid compelled to use the hard tyres, and a nice set of softs for him to play with… “which I couldn’t use!”

The three-time BTCC champion claimed his first race win since 2022 at Oulton Park last weekend

Photo by: JEP

That’s because of the rain that came down during the preceding Formula 4 race. Sums up his season… “It does pretty much. When the rain was coming down I was like, ‘Well, this is just sod’s law.’ We saved them, tried to be methodical through the day, and then we’re not going to get to use the trump card at the end.” 

Because of Shedden’s season to date, the odds looked long on him staying ahead throughout the race. Rowbottom was close at hand in fourth on the grid; Jake Hill was fifth and that BMW is always good in the wet; Tom Ingram sixth, Ash Sutton ninth, neither too far away… 

And the rain had stopped, with streaks of sunlight heading towards the circuit. “I said to somebody, if this championship allowed tyre warmers I’d have probably started on slicks,” Shedden confided in the paddock afterwards. “You knew it was going to come, but the fact everybody stayed on wets, I’m surprised nobody rolled the dice a little bit earlier a bit further back.” 

"Starting on the front row, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be difficult to pass. We’re all on the same tyre.’ I thought I would have seen more Hyundais coming forwards. But Jake kept me really honest, and it was a little bit chicken and egg" Gordon Shedden

Daryl DeLeon did early on – he had to pit to replace a puncture anyway after getting caught up in an incident – but he was compelled to use the hard tyres, something not particularly fantastic for a rear-wheel-drive BMW on a slippery surface.

Worth the gamble though. Then Dexter Patterson pitted his Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leon for a set of soft slicks under the second safety car, and lapped three seconds quicker than anyone else. Problem was, he was still 20s behind the train when the race went green, so could only make it up to 12th on the road. And then he was excluded because his car failed the ride-height test – not unusual in the BTCC when cars are switched onto the smaller-diameter slicks mid-race. 

“I was like, ‘Please tell me he’s not on the lead lap, because it’s going to be dry at the end,’” laughed Shedden. “I thought he’s going to be coming 10 seconds a lap faster.”

In true Oulton Park style, there were changeable conditions during the BTCC round

Photo by: JEP

As it happened, Shedden had to soak up the pressure from Hill and, later on, Sutton. It was an old master executing his 53rd BTCC race win when he had the opportunity. 

“God knows how we got it over the line, but I drove as well as I could, and blocked in places I had to, and stretched its legs in the other places,” he said. “It was amazing. 

“It’s difficult, you know? It’s not a lot of fun when you’re not fighting for wins. But you get that sniff… Starting on the front row, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be difficult to pass. We’re all on the same tyre.’ I thought I would have seen more Hyundais coming forwards. But Jake kept me really honest, and it was a little bit chicken and egg.

“There was phases of the race where I was faster, then he became faster, then it really tipped quite quickly in a lap or so and fell back into my favour a little bit. But yeah… you’ve got to take them any way you can get them.” 

If anything, rookie team-mate James Dorlin had appeared to be the Speedworks Toyota man most likely to post a decent result over recent weekends. The Yorkshireman looks a proper talent, and made it two Q3 appearances on the bounce: one in the rivers of a drenched Thruxton; one at a dry Oulton.

Dorlin, you may recall, was on reversed-grid pole at the Hampshire circuit, only for a sensor failure to strike right from the start. He knew he was doomed from the get-go, and things didn’t quite go his way at Oulton either, although he did join Shedden on the podium as the day’s combined Jack Sears Trophy points-topper.

Before his Oulton win, 2025 had been a disappointing season for Shedden who is 16th in the championship

Photo by: JEP

Dorlin’s time will come, but it’s clear that Speedworks has a distance to go to catch up with the Hyundais and Fords at the front. “We’re having to work hard on this package just now, and there’s a lot of work to do over the summer break, but it’s nice to give the team something back,” smiled Shedden.  

“You saw the reaction just now – it means a lot to them, and that’s really important to give them a little bit of a lift. We’ll see what we can do. We’re under no illusions we’re still not there with the top cars, but it’s a step in the right direction.” 

Shedden, fellow veteran Aron Taylor-Smith and Dorlin have a chassis they can work with but, ‘Flash’ added: “It's just exploring all the areas of the engine that we can to make it a little bit better. We’ll see what we end up with, but we’ve got to just keep trying.” 

For their Scottish race winner, a longer haul up the M6 to north of the border in his ‘wee motorhame’, no doubt happy and relieved to have proved that he can still be a BTCC race winner. It can’t help but inspire the folk who now need to make that Toyota into a more consistent contender. 

There was a young fella too who stopped to smilingly shake the hand of Shedden on his way back to the Speedworks camp. Finn Leslie was making his debut at the age of just 17 in the fourth Toyota, interrupting his rookie TCR season to replace the financially stricken Ronan Pearson. He’s a Fiesta Junior champion and, in my book, anyone who does that in a series from which emerged Joseph Loake and Deagen Fairclough has to be regarded as a serious prospect. 

Right from the start – he’d only driven the Toyota on shakedown day – Leslie looked to have the challenging, fast right-hander of Druids nailed. He had an inauspicious beginning to Sunday when his driveshaft broke on the grid, causing a delayed start, but mechanics are amazing people and his plopped a new one in, costing him just two laps.  

“Any seat time I can get really is always going to be good,” observed Leslie who, like Dorlin, hails from Yorkshire. “The pace that we showed in race one – I was only a tenth off my team-mate Aron – was quick enough to be in and around the top 10, which I know is where we should be. Just fought through, made a few places in race two, and then I was in a good place to start race three. It’s the most difficult championship in the UK – it doesn’t get much harder than the BTCC – so to be battling with the guys who’ve done it a fair few years now is always good.”  

Leslie finished the weekend inheriting Patterson’s 12th place: four points on his debut BTCC weekend. “Hopefully we can get the budget together to finish the season, fingers crossed,” he added. “We’ve got a long wait [five weeks] until Croft, my home round, so hopefully we can be on the grid there.” 

There won’t be anyone at Speedworks disappointed if that is the case. For them it was a short, and happy drive home; for their Scottish race winner, a longer haul up the M6 to north of the border in his ‘wee motorhame’, no doubt happy and relieved to have proved that he can still be a BTCC race winner. It can’t help but inspire the folk who now need to make that Toyota into a more consistent contender. 

Shedden has proved he can still win but the car must improve

Photo by: JEP