Majority of the field go with race three for Dunlop hard tyre

The majority of the field will run the hard tyre in the final race of the weekend after Dunlop revealed the tyre selections for the seventh round of the BTCC campaign at Rockingham.

With one eye on the weather forecast, a total of 20 drivers have selected the final race of the weekend in which to run the harder compound tyre, which is expected to be slower but more consistent across race run.

Only Brett Smith and Jason Plato of the top qualifiers have elected to run the tyre at the first opportunity, with Sam Tordoff elected to chose the second race of the weekend in his Motorbase-run Ford Focus.

“I’m not surprised to see so many people chose the final race of the weekend,” Dunlop’s Mickey Butler said. “With the chance of rain tomorrow, they are clearly hoping that they can avoid having to run it given that the hard tyre is likely to be slower, but exactly what the weather will do depends on which website or app you look at…

“I’m a bit surprised to see the likes of Brett Smith, Andrew Jordan and Jason running the hard tyre early on but if they can get it out of the way and pick up a solid result in the opening race, they’ll be well placed for later in the day.”

Race 1:
Bobby Thompson, Brett Smith, Glynn Geddie, Michael Caine, Andrew Jordan, Jason Plato, Matt Simpson

Race 2:
Rob Austin, Chris Smiley, Ollie Pidgley, Sam Tordoff

Race 3:
Ash Sutton, Colin Turkington, Tom Chilton, Rory Butcher, Tom Oliphant, Aiden Moffat, Senna Proctor, James Cole, Mike Bushell, Sam Smelt, Matt Neal, Dan Lloyd, Dan Cammish, Jack Goff, Adam Morgan, Ollie Jackson, Stephen Jelley, Josh Cook, Tom Ingram