Ash Sutton wins incident-shortened Oulton Park Race 1

Ash Sutton has won on his TCR UK Touring Car Championship debut ahead of Dan Lloyd, in a race which was reduced to 15 minutes after a major crash at the start of the race between Carl Swift and Rob Gilmour.

Sutton launched off the line into the lead with his Pyro Honda team-mate Ollie Taylor straight up into second at the first attempt at a start, but the race would only last until lap two before it was red-flagged after a crash at Island Bend between the Maximum Motorsport Cupra TCR of Carl Swift and the DPE Alfa Romeo of Rob Gilmour, with both cars propelled into the barriers with the Armco barrier heavily damaged.

The race was stopped for 30 minutes as the barrier was repaired and the two cars recovered, with a full restart ordered.

The race was now reduced to 15 minutes, and at the second start, Lloyd had an even worse start than Race 1 and dropped from second to fourth, while Derek Palmer launched from fifth to second into Old Hall in his DPE Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR ahead of Ollie Taylor’s Pyro Honda Civic.

It was soon clear however that both Palmer and Taylor had started out of position and were given a ten second time penalty, which meant Lloyd was effectively promoted to second position.

Lloyd passed Taylor for third on the road at Old Hall at the start of lap six, and kept in touch with Palmer for the remainder of the race while Sutton build a massive lead of nearly 16 seconds to take the win.

Palmer’s woes wouldn’t end there as the stewards also gave him a five second penalty for exceeding track limits, which saw him drop from second on the road to eighth in the classification, with Taylor dropped from fourth to seventh.

Andreas Bäckman would be classed as the final podium finisher in the #19 WestCoast Volkswagen, with Lewis Kent fourth in his Essex & Kent Motorsport Hyundai, and Jessica Bäckman completing the top five in her WestCoast Volkswagen.

Lloyd now extends his championship lead to 101 points clear of Taylor heading into today’s final race.

With the cars of Carl Swift and Rob Gilmour withdrawn due to damage, Race 1 winner Ash Sutton has been promoted to pole position for the final race, with Lewis Kent due to start alongside him in his Hyundai i30 N TCR, which starts at 16:25 BST.