Callum Newsham secures comfortable race one win at Oulton Park

Callum Newsham gained ground at the top of the TCR UK standings with a straight-forward victory in the opening race at Oulton Park.

Newsham had qualified on pole in a drying session earlier in the morning to outpace Harry Bloor by eight-tenths of a second, although conditions had improved ready for the start of the opening 20 minute encounter.

Whilst that left Newsham in the ideal position to try and battle for a vital championship win, points leader Max Hart would be alone at the back with a ten second penalty having been forced to switch into a Vannin Motorsport-run Audi due to the damage sustained to his Honda Civic in a TCR Europe accident a week earlier.

Newsham got away well from the line at the start with Bloor plummeting down the order when he didn’t get away, with Max Hall jumping up into second spot and Hart rising to third with his penalty seemingly having been removed at the last minute.

Behind, Jenson O’Neill-Going was run wide at turn one to lose places, with Newsham retaining the lead through the opening lap before Barry-John McHenry lost the rear of his car going through Cascades and went into the gravel to bring out the safety car.

The action resumed on lap five and there was more drama straightaway as Bloor tried to dive down the inside of Rod McGovern going through Cascades, with McGovern spinning off track and dropping to the back.

Within a lap of the restart, Newsham had a lead of well over a second over Hall who had Hart giving chase, with Brad Hutchison slipping away from the top three and Bloor being forced to defend to keep O’Neill-Going at bay.

As Newsham continued to race away at the front in the Hyundai, the focus turned to the fight for fourth as Bloor started to chase down Hutchison, although O’Neill-Going wasn’t with the pair having picked up a puncture that resulted in him being forced into the pits.

Bloor tried to make a move at Lodge at the end of lap ten but couldn’t get ahead of the Cupra as Hutchison defended to the inside, with Bloor then trying again at the hairpin two laps later without success.

Bloor did however get ahead on the run up to Druids before the end of what would be the penultimate lap of the race, with Hutchison unable to fight back into Lodge.

At the front, Newsham was untroubled as he took the win from Hall and Hart, with Bloor beating Hutchison to fourth as best of the rest.

McGovern would be a lonely sixth after his trip off track with O’Neill-Going finishing a lap down in seventh.