BTCC Season 2025 – OULTON PARK – PREVIEW
Always one of the most popular events on the BTCC calendar, Oulton Park in Cheshire is as picturesque as it is action-packed. The track was first developed from the original estate roads almost 70 years ago –and the BTCC has been visiting for the vast majority of that time as the sole North-West of England round.
This weekend promises to be the perfect summer spectator weekend with it being blisteringly hot, but lots of trees to sit under if the sun comes out – see the attached latest weather forecast picture!, Oulton Park regularly attracts huge crowds of more than 40,000 and undoubtedly provides one of the best ‘family atmospheres’ of any BTCC weekend with drivers and team members known to enjoy an informal campsite walkabout to meet the fans and soak up the excitement.
Marking the final event before the BTCC’s 2025 mid-summer break, Oulton Park hosts Rounds 13, 14 and 15 this weekend. We must feel a little bit for the support crews who will be building the cars, garages and hospitality units today in temperatures approaching 30 degrees, and highs of 32 degrees degrees tomorrow (Friday).
Aiden and Charles come into this weekend on a really positive note as both love the undulating and challenging circuit. Aiden has had silverware here before and Charles has raced the circuit both in person and virtually with Porsche. The 2.23 mile circuit has 12 corners with a lot of overtaking possible, sometimes even at the terrifying flat out first corner where there have been many bumps and crashes over the years. Then there is the final main corner at Lodge, where the 90 degree right hander suddenly drops into the dip for Deer’s Leap and there having been some amazing race winning moves made there on a race day.
As one of the longer circuits on the calendar, this brings us to the thorny question of qualifying. With the limited 10 minute sessions currently allowed it is likely that the first flying lap that any car will achieve will come pretty much halfway through that qualifying session. Given that in the dry a fast lap is around one minute and 26 seconds, you can see that a car is only likely to get 2 or maybe 3 fast laps in which to produce the best time.
WSR as the most successful team ever in the championship, are well prepared for challenging race weekends, with Alton park potentially going to be very hott but cloudy with it. This humidity is always an incredible challenge for drivers and teams alike, so having the significant experience within WSR is always a wonderful thing to house on the weekend such as this.
On Saturday the BTCC action starts at 9:45 with Free Practise 1, 12:05 for Free Practise 2 and 3:00 for Qualifying. On Sunday the races are at 12:20 pm, 2:40 pm and 5:05 pm with each race consisting of 15 laps.
We will bring you all of the action from every session across the weekend and if you can make it we look forward to seeing you there or alternatively qualifying and all the races on Sunday can be found on ITV’s BTCC coverage.