Photo by: JEP
Charles Rainford held off Ricky Collard to take victory in the final race of the British Touring Car Championship’s fourth round at Oulton Park.
Rainford and Collard, who started third and fifth respectively, were the only two drivers in the top five on the grid to be using the soft tyres, so both looked in the pound seats for this race.
But two safety car periods limited their advantage of TOCA Turbo Boost laps over Tom Ingram and Dan Cammish. Even so, Ingram could make no further progress from his third place, from 10th on the grid. But he has made inroads into the points advantage of Ash Sutton, who had an uncharacteristically subdued race to ninth.
Chris Smiley was on pole with hard tyres on his Restart Racing Hyundai i30 N Fastback and several nibbles at his rear bumper from the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport could not unsettle the Northern Irishman.
The race soon went under safety car conditions when Aron Taylor-Smith lost it at the first corner of Old Hall, and as he slewed across the track he collected Adam Morgan, sending the Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon into the barrier.
After the restart, Rainford swept around the outside of Smiley at Cascades to take the lead, while Collard slipped his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai down the inside of Smiley at Lodge to snatch second place.
Photo by: JEP
Ingram made a superb lunge down the inside of Cammish’s Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium at Old Hall, and both quickly demoted Smiley too.
Up front, Rainford had pulled out over two seconds on Collard when the safety car appeared for a second time. Tom Chilton had launched off the kerb at the Dentons kink onto a collision with the Alliance Ford of Lewis Selby, which as a result smacked side-on into the barrier at Cascades.
The race went green with six laps remaining, and Rainford held on to defeat Collard by 1.319s. Ingram and Cammish were also close at hand, as was fifth-placed Josh Cook in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport.
Smiley was able to hold off Dan Rowbottom’s Plato Mercedes until the penultimate lap, but the Midlander finally got through for sixth from Smiley, Dexter Patterson, Sutton and Aiden Moffat.
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- The Autosport.com Team
Source: Autosport