Blink and you miss it! Incredibly at the end of the meeting at a sun-soaked Oulton Park, the season would reach its halfway point after a fifth meeting in eight weeks. Reigning champion, Ash Sutton, won his first race of the season in the third race at Thruxton, but would he extend his championship lead ahead of the summer break? 

Qualifying

Coming into the meeting third in the standings, Tom Ingram set about chasing Sutton by securing pole position on Saturday with a blistering lap that destroyed the previous qualifying lap record at the circuit, albeit Sutton joined him on the front row.

Their teammates, Dan Cammish and Tom Chilton, lined up behind them on the second row with Dan Rowbottom and Adam Morgan completing the top six. The man second in the championship standings, after four wins in six races, Jake Hill, was seventh with Colin Turkington, who had a relatively torrid time at Thruxton, only ninth. 

Race One, 3.5/10 – Tom Ingram, Ash Sutton, Dan Cammish

• The top seven all started on the soft tyre and while the front runners got away well, Hill jumped to 5th, but Turkington stalled on the line with a clutch issued that became apparent on the green flag lap. He eventually rejoined the race, but over a lap down. 
• On the second lap, Sutton was all over Ingram and was down the inside of him at the Island Bend, but as they powered away, Ingram was ahead and after contact with Sutton, he skipped the corner at Hislops, but unlike at Thruxton, he kept the place with no post-race penalty. 
• Lap 3 wasn’t great for Chilton as he was passed by Hill, Rowbottom and Morgan. 
• The race then settled down with the top 5 all relatively close, but on lap 9, Hill had a massive lock up at Island Bend and lost positions to Rowbottom and Morgan. However, Árón Taylor-Smith, in 8th, was 17 seconds behind the leader showing the difference in pace between the hard tyres compared to the softs. 
• With a few laps to go, Rowbottom was having to defend stoutly from Morgan, but a piece of flapping rear bodywork meant that Rowbottom received the black and orange flag to come into the pits to have it removed. However, he decided to stay out and was handed a 30 second penalty post race, dropping him to 15th. 
• At the front, Ingram never disappeared into the distance from Sutton and Cammish, but had enough of a gap to manage the race to storm home to his third victory of the season. 

Race Two, 6.5/10 – Josh Cook, Tom Ingram, Jake Hill

• While the top three from race one got away well, Hill jumped fellow BMW driver Morgan for 4th, but worse was to follow for Morgan as he was tagged by Chilton, who had nowhere to go, and he ended up facing in the wrong direction, slowing down the majority of the cars behind him. 
• However, the fast starting Josh Cook avoided the incident and set about the front runners. After Island Bend, he was already 2nd and before the end of the lap, he had overtaken Ingram to lead from 8th on the grid. From then on, he slowly built a more than comfortable lead to win for the first time since August 2022. 
• The early laps saw Sutton trying to overtake Ingram, but to no avail as places two to six were all within a whisker of each other. A man making progress, however, was Turkington and he was up to 11th on lap 9, before finishing 7th from the very back of the grid. 
• Also on lap 9, Sutton’s rear end appeared to have exactly the same issue as Rowbottom in the opening race with a small piece of rear bumper flapping. The inevitable black and orange flag came out and Sutton had to pit a lap later from 3rd, but not before teammate Cammish had tried, and failed, to knock it off. 
• On the final lap, Hill made a move on the outside line of Cammish to take 3rd and end Cammish’s run of four consecutive podiums. 

Race Three, 5.5/10 – Jake Hill, Mikey Doble, Árón Taylor-Smith

• Cook created the least amount of disruption possible by drawing out ball six of Mikey Doble for the reverse grid draw. He was joined on the front row by teammate Taylor-Smith with Cammish and Hill behind. 
• Both Astra drivers held position off the line, although Hill jumped Cammish for third. 
• On lap 3, Rowbottom made a great move on Chris Smiley for 8th and repeated the trick a lap later on Turkington and then Cook. Sutton, meanwhile, was already up six places to 10th. 
• Sutton continued to move forward, although Turkington was out of the equation following a spin after contact.
• At the half way point, the top seven were all close with Ingram moving up to 4th and Taylor-Smith acting as the perfect teammate to give Doble breathing space at the front, but he couldn’t disappear from the pack. 
• With hybrid help, Hill made his move for 2nd with five laps to go, but the was more woe for Sutton as his internal rear arched collapsed onto his tyre, meaning another pit stop on the day. 
• It didn’t take Hill long to seriously pressurise Doble and once the leader’s hybrid allocation was finished, he was a sitting duck and Hill took full advantage with just half a lap to go to claim his fifth victory in nine races.

Leading the series by five points heading into the meeting, not many would have imagined Sutton being 24 points behind the new leader Hill at the end of it, going into the summer break. Both drivers have been driving incredibly well, but luck was not on Sutton’s side at Oulton Park. 

The decision to give him black and orange flag in race two may show consistency from the previous meeting at Thruxton and race with Rowbottom, but it has to be seriously questioned if it really is a dangerous piece of bodywork. The majority would say no. Do we want the championship to be decided by calls from the stewards? Absolutely not. 

While we can all agree, cars racing around the track with bumpers hanging off the rear end or front splitters sparking across the track is dangerous, is what we’ve seen decisions for this season really worth impacting the championship for? As we head to the summer break, you would hope there could be more leniency in the second half of the season, but then could it be implemented due to fairness because drivers have already suffered from the ruling in the first half of the season? 

Sutton wasn’t the only one to have a disaster of a day with Turkington picking up just ten points from the meeting. Having started the season so well, Turkington has now had two nightmare rounds with very little being his own fault. He now stands 65 points behind the leader at the half way point and given the form of the five ahead of him, it could already be curtains for his 2024 championship challenge due to bad luck. 

Ingram, however, remains right in the hunt. Another excellent weekend sees him incredibly close to Hill at the top and he is driving incredibly well. The pace of his lap in qualifying with next to no hybrid was outstanding. 

There is absolutely no doubt that the second half of the season’s championship battle is going to be incredible, but let’s hope the battles will be decided between the drivers and not due to bad luck or questionable stewards’ decisions. Although Sutton has a deficit to Hill, it is still well within his grasp and this season it really is anyone’s guess who will win the championship out of the current leading trio. 

In the past, Croft, next up on the calendar, most certainly favoured rear-wheel drive cars, but since its resurfacing a few years ago, it has been far more equal. Whether the teams bring further upgrades after the break remains to be seen, but right now, who wins at Croft is anyone’s guess. 

2024 BTCC standings after 15 rounds:

1.	Jake Hill	211 points
2.	Tom Ingram	207
3.	Ashley Sutton	187
4.	Dan Cammish	169
5.	Josh Cook	153
6.	Colin Turkington	146