BTCC Season 2025 – OULTON PARK – FREE PRACTICE 2
Good afternoon everybody and welcome back to Oulton Park here in a very damp and humid Cheshire. Amongst the rolling parklands and trees, we had a difficult start to the session as it had rained quite heavily for the 5 minutes preceding the start and on the 1st 3 laps we had no fewer than 5 cars off the road and through the gravel at various points around the circuit.
This meant that very intentionally, Aidan and Charles did not immediately go out, but when Charles did venture out onto the circuit he found himself going through the gravel at Lodge corner and then coming in to the pits to reassess the situation. As the track dried out during the session, Charles was able to get back out and get a few laps under his belt. It was interesting for him to see how the car handled in these moderately damp but incredibly sticky conditions.
Aiden on the other hand intentionally sat out the 1st 15 minutes of the session as it was a little bit of a lottery in terms of performance of the cars and the way the track was drying out. Once the track itself had started to dry, it was clear that the rain on the very hot tarmac had left things quite slippery and all of the rear wheel cars were a handful under these conditions.
At the halfway point of the session it had started to spit again and there was a flurry of cars in and out of the pits changing different type compounds for the rest of the session, all trying to find a usable setup and tyre choice for qualifying in a couple of hours time.
Whilst we were not happy with our overall finishing places on the session with Charles 16th and Aiden 17th, it should be noted that both drivers were ahead of last year’s champion Jake Hill. Based on this session it seems like there may be an element of lottery in the first part of qualifying, but as we’ve said many times, the short format of each qualifying session is a real jeopardy for every team and car as there is not really enough time to put in two quick laps and decide to change tyres and get further quick laps in. As a result we expect to see some out of place cars in the qualifying session, which we will bring you shortly.
In terms of the weather, the latest thunderstorm alert suggests it will occur after qualifying rather than during it, and we, the drivers and the teams all hope that that is the case. We will bring you all of the qualifying action shortly where we will know the starting positions for race one just after 12:00 tomorrow.