BTCC Oulton Park: Rowbottom beats Ingram to top practice

Dan Rowbottom snatched the fastest time away from Tom Ingram as the British Touring Car Championship prepared for battle for its latest round at Oulton Park.

The Midlander was on form in both sessions, whisking his NAPA Racing-liveried Alliance Ford Focus ST to second fastest time in FP1, and then edging out Ingram by 0.110 seconds with five minutes remaining in the lunchtime session.

It appears to put Rowbottom in a good position on a circuit where the hybrid reduction for the top seven runners in the championship is expected to have a bigger effect than at most other venues, owing to the characteristics of the Cheshire parkland venue.

He is down in 11th in the points, and as such is entitled to the full 15 seconds per lap of power boost for qualifying.

Rowbottom told Autosport that there has been a big impact with the arrival at the Alliance squad of veteran tin-top technician Paul Ridgway as his engineer.

“Obviously we’ve had a few changes on the operational side for this weekend and the car is feeling great,” he said. “We’ve got a few little issues but nothing we can’t sort out.”

Of Ridgway, whose most recent BTCC role was with the Speedworks Toyota squad until the end of the 2023 season, and who also works with the Lynk & Co operation in the TCR World Tour, Rowbottom added: “He’ll be with me for the rest of the season, and hopefully beyond that as long as he doesn’t think I’m a complete bell end!

“I’m feeling good. When you feel you’ve got the car, you just have the confidence to push.

Tom Ingram (Photo by: JEP)

“Our season starts at round five – better late than never.”

Ingram, the 2022 champion, spent long periods at the top of both sessions in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback.

The soft Goodyear tyre is the standard rubber for this weekend, with the hard compound as the option, but competitors were allowed to use some carryover mediums from previous race weekends in free practice.

Ingram set a very early time in FP1 on mediums that remained fastest until it was eclipsed late on by Aron Taylor-Smith, Rowbottom and Ronan Pearson, all on softs.

Ingram’s first serious work on the soft came midway through FP2, and he went fastest by a clear half-second before the others caught up.

A last-lap improvement put Taylor-Smith back at the sharp end again in his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra, giving the cheerful Dubliner third place in FP2.

That continued his good progress from FP1, where he set two laps faster than the best achieved by anyone else, the quickest of which was 0.036s clear of second-placed Rowbottom.

Tom Chilton made it two Excelr8 Hyundais in the top four, while championship leader Ash Sutton was fifth in his Alliance Ford – a couple of his quick laps looked quite sketchy, and his theoretical best on fastest sector times would have put the four-time title winner on top of the times.

Yet another Alliance Ford, that of Dan Cammish, was sixth ahead of Adam Morgan in the best of the West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sports, and Mikey Doble in the second of the PMR Vauxhalls.

Pearson was one of the few not to improve in FP2, but his FP1 best put the Scot’s Excelr8 Hyundai ninth on overall times, ahead of Rob Huff in the best of the Speedworks-run Toyota Corollas.

The remaining BMWs of title contenders Jake Hill and Colin Turkington were outside the top 10 in the quicker FP2, although Hill was sixth on soft tyres in FP1.

With the qualifying groups decided by alternate positions from FP2, that puts Sutton and Turkington from the championship top five in the first batch, and Ingram, Cammish and Hill in the second.

BTCC Oulton Park - Practice results

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK	32		Ford Focus ST	17	1'24.536		94.795
2	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors	80		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	20	+0.110 1'24.646	0.110	94.672
3	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	40		Vauxhall Astra	17	+0.125 1'24.661	0.015	94.655
4	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors	3		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	16	+0.174 1'24.710	0.049	94.600
5	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	1		Ford Focus ST	17	+0.232 1'24.768	0.058	94.536
6	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	27		Ford Focus ST	17	+0.459 1'24.995	0.227	94.283
7	A. Morgan Team BMW	33		BMW 330e M Sport	20	+0.489 1'25.025	0.030	94.250
8	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	88		Vauxhall Astra	17	+0.581 1'25.117	0.092	94.148
9	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	12		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+0.621 1'25.157	0.040	94.104
10	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	16		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+0.628 1'25.164	0.007	94.096
11	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	11		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	18	+0.765 1'25.301	0.137	93.945
12	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	24		BMW 330e M Sport	17	+1.058 1'25.594	0.293	93.623
13	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors	14		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	14	+1.088 1'25.624	0.030	93.591
14	D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	18		Cupra León	18	+1.178 1'25.714	0.090	93.492
15	C. Turkington Team BMW	20		BMW 330e M Sport	20	+1.198 1'25.734	0.020	93.471
16	C. Smiley Restart Racing	222		Cupra León	17	+1.259 1'25.795	0.061	93.404
17	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	77		Ford Focus ST	18	+1.514 1'26.050	0.255	93.127
18	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	66		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	13	+1.548 1'26.084	0.034	93.090
19	S. Sumpton Restart Racing	29		Cupra León	19	+2.215 1'26.751	0.667	92.375
20	N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors	22		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	19	+2.269 1'26.805	0.054	92.317
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