“Tire set up” is how a racing team chooses the tires and plans how to use them during the race. It’s about getting enough grip without wearing the tires out too quickly.
Racing tires come in different “compounds,” which is basically the rubber recipe. Softer tires grip better but wear out sooner; harder tires last longer but may not grip as strongly.
If the difference between the soft and hard tires is huge, the choice matters more. Teams have to think harder about when to use the grippier tire versus the longer-lasting one.
An “incident” is something that happened on track that officials might consider against the rules. If it’s judged unsafe or unfair, the driver can receive a penalty.
A “five second penalty” means the race officials add five seconds to a driver’s time because of a rules issue. That extra time can push the driver behind others in the final order.
A “damp patch” is a small wet spot on the starting grid. If your car is over it, the tires can slip more at the start, making your launch slower.
Term
damper line
“Damper line” in this context sounds like the edge where the wet area starts on the grid. If you’re on the wrong side of that line, your tires can get less grip at launch.
A “demon start” just means the car launches off the line really aggressively and quickly. It can help you get ahead early, but the first lap is also when things get crowded and risky.
Ash Sutton is a well-known BTCC race driver. Here, he gets a very strong start and then has a first-lap moment where other cars get involved, changing where he ends up in the field.
Person
Cook
“Cook” is another BTCC driver mentioned in the crash/incident. The hosts are basically debating whether his actions on the first lap were bad enough to deserve a penalty.
“Grip” means how well the tires can hold the road. Less grip makes it easier for the car to slide or lose control, especially early in the race.
Place
Alton
“Alton” here is the race track they’re talking about. Because it’s narrow, cars have less room to avoid each other, so small mistakes can turn into big incidents.
The throttle is basically the accelerator—how much power the engine sends to the wheels. If you add too much power at the wrong moment, the car can start sliding, but easing it can help you recover.
Term
first lap Shenanigans
“First lap shenanigans” just means the race start gets messy—cars are close together and it’s easy to make contact. The hosts are saying any penalty decision may hinge on whether it was normal racing chaos or something avoidable.
Barriers are the crash-protection walls around the track. They’re there to slow and absorb impact, and whether a car can keep going depends on how badly it’s damaged.
Debris is anything loose on the track, like parts or broken pieces. It can make the track slippery and can also get into a car’s cooling area and cause problems.
The pits are where teams bring the car in to check it or make changes. After an accident, a driver might go in to make sure everything is okay before continuing.
Term
sausage curvy
Those “sausage curbs” are the bumpy, striped curbs at the edge of the track. Drivers use them to help turn in, but you can’t just go off the track without consequences.
“Holding his line” means the driver keeps the same path through the corner. In racing, that predictability is important—if you suddenly change where you’re going, it can cause a crash.
Even if you start a pass, you’re not guaranteed the right to finish it. If the other car is already in the right place and you’re not fully alongside, you may be expected to back out to avoid a collision.
“Retire with a problem” means the car has an issue and the driver has to stop racing. It’s different from just driving slower—eventually the car can’t continue safely.
The “racing line” is the best path around a corner that keeps the car fast and stable. If a car suddenly leaves that line because something’s wrong, it can surprise other drivers.
The “pit lane” is the area next to the track where teams work on the cars. If a car needs to stop for repairs, it has to get to the pit lane entrance safely.
They’re talking about race three and how earlier events affect what drivers can compete for next. It’s basically the plan for the next race after what happened before.
An "electrical failure" means something in the car’s electronics went wrong. That can stop the car from running properly or make it behave badly on track.
In BTCC, “boost” is extra power you’re allowed to use for a set number of laps. If it’s “eight laps,” the driver has a limited period where the car is quicker, so strategy is built around when those laps happen.
Soft racing tires usually stick to the road better, which helps you go faster. The downside is they wear out quicker, so teams use them when they think they’ll need that extra grip for a limited time.
“Space Wagon” usually means a weird, standout car nickname, not one exact model you can look up by that name. People use it when a vehicle looks unusual or doesn’t fit the normal type of race car. That’s why it might be mentioned in a funny or critical story about how it performed or what happened around it.
“Druids” is a named corner at Oulton Park. The hosts are saying Moffat went off there, which tells you exactly where the incident happened on the track.
This means the rear of the car stopped behaving predictably—usually because the tyres lost grip. When that happens, the car can start to slide sideways, which is why it then “slid wide.”
A “boost pass” means the driver times the overtake to when the car has strong acceleration available. They use that extra push to get past, usually right as they come out of a turn.
“Full boost” is when the engine is giving you its strongest acceleration. If the tires have grip, that extra power helps the car speed up fast enough that defending becomes very difficult.
“Same team” means the cars belong to the same racing organization. Sometimes teammates don’t fight as hard because the team is managing the race strategy for the best overall result.
“Tire offset” is basically the advantage one car has because its tires are working better than the other car’s. Better tires can mean more speed and a bigger gap by the end of the race.
“Track limits penalties” happen when a driver goes outside the marked edge of the track. Because it can cost time or result in a penalty, drivers sometimes back off slightly to stay within the rules.
“Boost” is extra power from a turbo. “Minimal boost” means they’re using less turbo pressure than normal, so the car makes less power and is usually slower.
“Out of kilter” just means the car isn’t behaving the way it should. After going off onto the grass, something about the car’s handling may have changed, making it harder to drive consistently.
“Unbalanced” means the car doesn’t feel right in how it grips the road. The driver may feel the car is harder to control because the front and rear aren’t working together properly.
An “excursion onto the grass” is when a car leaves the racing surface and goes onto the verge. In touring car racing, that can disturb tire temperatures, alignment, suspension geometry, or even cause minor contact damage that affects balance afterward.
“Loose” at the back means the rear tires aren’t sticking as well as the front. The car can start to slide or feel like it’s turning more than the driver intended.
A “bumpiest track” means the surface has significant vertical movement—bumps, ridges, and uneven tarmac. That can upset suspension geometry and tire contact patches, making cars feel loose or unsettled even if they’re not damaged.
Term
nicks and bumps
“Nicks and bumps” refers to small surface imperfections—chips, ridges, and uneven patches in the tarmac. Even minor defects can kick up the car’s suspension response and contribute to vibration, tire wear, and a less stable feel.
Monaco is referenced as a prior race where the hosts saw “abrasions,” implying harsher surface effects on the cars. Monaco’s tight, abrasive street circuit is known for punishing tires and exposing how unsettled a car can feel.
That means using more than one type of tire during the race. Softer tires usually grip more, while harder tires last longer—so the mix is about timing and conditions.
A safety car is when officials slow the race down behind a pace car after a crash. It keeps everyone safer and often gives teams a chance to adjust strategy, like pitting.
Adam Morgan is another race driver mentioned here. His car was spinning, and that’s what created the danger that others had to react to.
Person
Buxlin
Buxlin is a driver mentioned in the incident. He had to swerve to avoid trouble, went onto the grass, and picked up damage that affected the car’s radiator.
Torque is the engine’s twisting force. It’s what helps the car launch and accelerate—especially at the start when the driver is asking for a lot of it.
A restart is when the race starts again after it was slowed or stopped. How the cars line up can affect who gets a good launch and who gets stuck in traffic.
A chicane is a section of the track where you have to change direction quickly to slow down. It’s also a common place for overtakes because the braking and turning create opportunities.
A “harder tire” doesn’t grip as strongly as a soft tire, but it usually lasts longer. That can be good for finishing the race, but it can make the car slower or harder to drive fast.
A “brake horsepower reduction” means the car is made less powerful by the rules. Less power usually makes it harder to accelerate and pass, especially when you’re already on the back foot.
Term
squeezed by Camus
“Squeezed” means one car pressures another so there’s barely any space left to stay on the racing line. It’s the kind of move that can be legal—or feel sketchy—depending on how much room is given.
Old Hall is a specific corner at Oulton Park. When they say a move happened there, they’re telling you the exact spot on the track where the action took place.
A “two-in-car move” is when two cars are fighting for the same spot at the same time, usually side-by-side. People debate whether it’s fair and safe, or whether it’s too aggressive.
“Two-in-car racing” means cars are often running side-by-side, even through tricky parts of the track. The hosts are saying that style is less accepted now because the rules and enforcement are stricter.
A “crossover period” is when the advantage switches from one tire type to the other during the race. It happens because tires warm up and wear out at different rates.
Place
Selby
Selby is a specific part of the Oulton Park track. The comment is basically saying the driver got pushed toward that section and should avoid going too far over the curb.
Here, “Chilton” is the name of the driver they’re talking about. They’re saying his driving line and curb behavior made the car unstable and contributed to the crash.
An overtake is when one car gets past another while racing. It often depends on where you brake, how you exit the corner, and whether you leave enough room.
They’re talking about the engine not making as much power as it should. If the engine is “down on power,” the car won’t accelerate as strongly and may struggle to keep up.
“Teething issues” means early growing pains—problems that show up at the start before everything is fully sorted. It’s common when teams are still dialing in a new setup or new parts.
Topic
play-toe racing
This is the team the hosts are talking about. They’re saying the team has some early problems and needs to improve the car’s power and consistency.
Napa is mentioned as changing their race car’s configuration for this season. They’re basically adapting the car to fit the “saloon” category while keeping the main base underneath similar.
“Underpinnings” means the main base of the car—its core structure and major parts. They’re saying the top-level change doesn’t completely change the whole car underneath.
Concept
fresh
Here, “fresh” is used to describe a team or group coming into the championship with a new approach or new personnel. It signals a change in experience level and development direction, which can affect how quickly they adapt.
Simulation work is when the team uses computers to test how the car might behave without having to drive it every time. It helps them figure out what changes to try before they go back on track.
“Luck of the draw” means sometimes race results depend on things you can’t fully control. For example, when you get stuck in traffic or when a safety car comes out can change your finishing position.
LIVE
I guess this is what happens when you order rain from Timo, it comes very, very late.
This is the Alton Park review.
Hello, and welcome back to the British During Car podcast.
We're going to bring you up to date with all the action from Alton this weekend.
Now we have been on the sofa, so we're going to bring you snippets of updates, basically.
We've watched each race individually and then we've given our thoughts a review of each race.
So if it seems a little staggered, that's why this weekend.
But it's to try and bring it out as soon as possible after the races have finished for you.
Yeah, and as alluded to in the intro there, it was the weekend of rain that never came,
which yeah, disappointing.
Threatened it in spots.
It rained in other parts of the day, but there was no wet touring car race,
which is a bit of a shame.
However, we did say in the preview that it was going to rain,
which basically ensured they definitely would not.
Yeah, it was an interesting day of racing.
Plenty of controversy with some action throughout the field.
And it was a day in which certain ingrims still showed their quality and their class
in the performances that they gave.
Did you enjoy sitting on the sofa today?
I must admit, I did quite enjoy having a sofa day.
We've done the first three live at the venues.
I did actually quite enjoy.
Lovely Mese lunch.
Yes, yes.
No, very much enjoyed it, able to see the majority of the action.
Correct him Harvey several times on which driver is which.
And yeah, enjoyed most of it.
Shame we didn't get to see more of the sport races, but we had this to do.
And we had a Grand Prix to semi-try and be interested in.
It wasn't that bad.
It wasn't that bad.
I've seen worse ones.
Yeah.
It went track surface is the most exciting part of a Grand Prix.
You're in a bit of trouble really.
Yeah, well, we'll get straight into the action on Sunday for the touring cars
with race one first of all.
Race one promised so much from a damp point of view.
However, the rain had stopped the time race one begun.
There's a few puddles on the track, but it was a what you'd call a damp to drying line.
So all drivers starting on the slick tires on the formation lap.
It was clear that the track was going to start damp ish, but very quickly dried.
Adam Morgan pointed that out.
He was the one of the camera cars this weekend and was able to point out very early on that
it was a drying line.
Yeah, it was overcast overhead.
No real signs of possible showers throughout the race.
So it's going to be who could make the best of keeping the tires warm,
going through those wet patches and making the most of it throughout the race.
Yeah.
In terms of tire set up the earliest hard running car.
So there's two compounds this weekend soft hard.
It's the first time this season we've had the biggest gap possible between tire compounds.
That was Collard who was starting in 12th and a little bit of house came from yesterday.
We did mention in the qualifying review that Dawlin might pick up a penalty for his
incident with Shedham and the other car that was involved, which was, I've forgotten now,
the other car that was involved.
Robotton.
Ah, thank you.
And indeed, Dawlin did get a five second penalty for that was dropped and down the
order for the start of this one.
I think it's probably fair enough, but I say we did say yesterday that it was one of those where
you could understand if a penalty came his way.
Yeah, quite.
We did also see Max Buxton take the start for this race.
Thankfully for you.
There is the possibility that he could still score points this weekend.
Absolutely.
So at the start of the race, it was a good start by all at the front, apart from Ingram was a
little bit slower away.
We've seen a couple of times Ingram a little bit bobbed down on the start.
He said after the race that he had a possible damp patch on his side of the grid,
which may have hindered his start.
Yeah, he was on the damper line to be fair.
But yeah, he defended it quite well and stayed in fourth going into the first corner.
Someone who got a demon start was Ash Sutton has become a trademark of his.
However, this time it would be his downfall.
I mean, I'm not blaming Camish before anybody starts shouting at me.
I think he was held up by Camish as far as Sutton got such a quick start in comparison
to his teammate that he had to kind of go around the outside of Cook because there's
nowhere else for him to go.
And then Cook, down cascade, sort of the car slid away from him in into Sutton.
He said, isn't it your afters that bumper to bumper locked?
It looked to me as if if Cook just was fighting to keep the car on the apex,
couldn't it just kept sliding, sliding and then Sutton stopped the slide.
Being the first lap of the race, the tyres probably aren't quite up to temperature.
Don't have the levels of grip that you probably want to have,
which is always going to allow the car to move.
And when they're in such close proximity as well, with Alton being such a narrow track,
knocked Ash sideways and buried the throttle, managed to catch it again,
but did drop him down to eighth overall.
Yeah, it was a good save.
It's not the best save I've ever seen from Sutton, but it was a good save.
Nonetheless, you say it only dropped in five places.
Obviously, five plays he would prefer not to have dropped,
but it could have been a lot worse than it was for him.
Dropping him back into the pack where he would go on to battle with other drivers as well though.
Yeah, I'm not sure we'll see a penalty for Cook on this one personally.
I think that it will come down to use a first lap Shenanigans racing instant.
I would say it's necessary driving the car without control.
The car is sliding from underneath him.
We've seen quite a few cars down the Cascades this weekend looking really, really loose.
It's bumpy down there as well.
Yeah, I'd be surprised if Cook gets anything for that personally.
He might not get a Christmas card from his good friend Sutton this year,
but in terms of penalties, I personally don't think that'll be one.
Cut to Race 2's review where Cook has been excluded from the results,
but yeah, I don't see it myself.
Selby was next in strife and a little bit of contact with Patterson.
It was hard to tell.
It looked like Selby was trying to get past Patterson on the outside,
onto the grass.
I don't think he was fair enough alongside to claim he had the position done.
No, so Patterson got a really slow run around the back of the circuit,
which dropped him a few positions back and put him right on the back foot with
Selby trying to make the move coming through the exit of Druvids.
And Patterson, within his rights to go defensive, Selby had a really good run,
chose to go down the right, or tried to go down the right hand side
and kind of ran out a track in front of himself and got onto the damp grass,
which then sent him spinning.
Yeah, again, from the angles we've seen on the television,
doesn't it look like Patterson changes direction or anything like that?
So again, I'd be surprised there's a penalty.
Selby was able to get going.
He did hit the barriers, but thank goodness as well.
Yeah, he took out all the hoardings and sprayed debris across the track.
But I mean, once he did hit the barriers, he was able to sort of keep
the integral parts of the car out of the barrier,
which meant he could at least get going.
However, the safety car was called at first of the weekend,
which is good news for you if you wanted at least two.
You said there the debris, it was a lot of hoarding spread across the circuit.
And if you get that in a radiator or something like that, it can cause problems.
I'm going to sound like a massive hypocrite for what I have done the rest of the season,
so I apologize.
I was slightly surprised this was a safety car.
Given the length of the circuit at Orton Park is,
I wondered if it could be done.
Especially with how closely grouped the whole field was.
I think there was a good, probably 30, 40 seconds where
someone could have got out there, picked up the really big bits of hoardings
that had laid flat on the circuit.
One thing I must also say is Selby did manage to recover,
get the car going again and come into the pits just to check whether everything's all right
and go back out on the circuit.
I guess I would say that it is wet.
You don't want a marshall slipping on the grass
and then not being able to get back up as the cars come around.
As someone that always wants to err on the side of safety,
I'm absolutely not complaining about it.
Nor am I.
I'm just, based on what we've seen in the past,
I was surprised that we saw a safety car,
given what some of the stuff we haven't seen safety cars for.
On the restart, there was no weaving today.
Everybody got the memo and it was a fairly well controlled start
from Camish, no real chance for Cook to get by at that point.
No, it looked like Morgan was trying to make the most of it or exactly.
We had Sutton in his boot, to be fair.
And then there'd be a pinch point between them going through the chicane.
Sutton tried to go around the outside.
He did this in the race yesterday against Doble to great effect.
Today didn't work so much.
It didn't work so well.
Had to bail out, cut across the grass,
was lucky not to get a lot of grass in his radiator.
Morgan, for me, didn't do anything wrong here.
He held his line going into the corner.
Sutton was nowhere near as far ahead as he was on the move with Doble yesterday.
And he had to bail out a bit, basically.
We had the onboard of Morgan because he's the camera car that you can see.
His line doesn't change.
In my opinion, he just holds his line, which he's entitled to do.
I don't think it's a case of you can do the Alonzo always.
You must leave the space.
I think that there was enough space there if Sutton really wanted to do it out.
It wasn't like Dawlings yesterday,
where he's up on the sausage curvy, gets pushed across.
He just holds his line on the inside.
And Sutton wasn't far enough along the side.
No, and just because you can launch a move,
doesn't mean you have an absolute right to complete the move.
And I say, I don't think that Morgan did anything wrong here.
Again, cut to a penalty when we get to recording race two.
Although for Morgan, it was a little bit give now take later,
because he would then have to retire with a problem.
Cars slowing down.
He was trying to get off the racing line.
Nearly saw a couple of cars go into him,
because it was such a sharp, quick problem.
It wasn't one of those that developed, and you suddenly think,
I need to think about getting this off.
It was like, oh, no, OK, the car's not working.
So it's one or two corners from the end of the lap.
He just started slowing, going back through the field.
And then he was put in a difficult position
of trying to get back across the circuit to the entrance for the pit lane.
He managed to do it safely in the end,
but it's a really difficult situation when other cars around you,
obviously racing competitively, just want to get going fast,
and he's trying to move across.
And this is going to be the problem of a new team.
There will always be teething problems,
whether you like it or not,
or if it's got Jason Plato's name attached to it or not,
or we're too negative for saying it.
There is a new team.
This is, unfortunately, all part and parcel of running a brand new car
in a brand new team trying to learn bits and pieces.
And there'll always be little teething gremlins with the cars.
At this point, we're unaware as to what the problem was.
So are they.
But it did keep him in the pits for the rest of the race.
Yes, he looked very angry.
And we'll possibly have an update for you before the start of race two.
He did not look happy, and he didn't look particularly pleased
with the man of the laptop designer.
He was going to come in presuming not to do a team's call to the boss.
But yeah, be interested to see what the problem was.
I'm going to guess at this stage, electrical,
the way the car just died, but we shall see.
We shall see.
As you say, I wasn't able to get back out.
And after that, really, the race kind of it petered out quite a lot.
The car, this car spread was quite large within the field.
I will just point out that De Leon had quite a good recovery
from what was a very disappointing day yesterday.
Into ninth and was looking fairly quick, fairly racy.
He'd be obviously looking to try and get further forward in race two.
Potentially, there's cars ahead of him on a harder tyre.
Yeah, he made a nice move on the outside of Smiley,
going down into the hairpin, managed to get the overlap,
and nearly got chilton as well.
And then on the exit going up over the hill,
managed to complete that move with relative ease.
Yeah, and then a bit further towards the front.
An angry Sutter was trying to rough up Doble to get by.
But again, Doble held his ground fairly comfortably in the end.
Obviously, Sutton was slightly hampered
by having less boost than anybody else in the field.
I think, whilst he won't be happy,
it's not a cataclysmic result for Sutton either.
He's got a good chance to do it in race two, to put things right.
But overall, strongly for Camish, his first of the season,
able to convert that pole from yesterday, which is always important.
Comfortably as well, considering the boost offset
that there was between Camish and Cook.
Cook didn't really look like he was challenging towards the end.
And he said in the post-race interview that
that's kind of all the car had to give.
He was wondering whether there was something, possibly,
a little power issue that they were having
to be not able to get close enough to the forward
to make a good enough challenge.
Absolutely.
So in terms of your race one result, as it stands,
we will obviously update if anything changes.
Dan Camish, the winner, from Josh Cook, from Tom Ingram.
Big podium for him.
And it's one of only, I think, two,
if not three times this season's outscored Sutton.
So big result for him.
All three of which will now be starting
on the hard tie at four race two, quite crucially.
Yeah, I think that's going to be a, well,
I'm going to predict now a really difficult race
for those three, particularly Ingram,
who's going to be the first that's met all things being
equal by the soft charges behind.
Aaron Taylor-Smith will be sitting pretty in fourth.
Aida Mothin, Mikey Doeville, both will fancy
wins in race two from there, 100%.
Ash Slutton finished seventh.
I mean, don't rule him out for a win in race two,
either from there.
They've then got Tom Sheldon, Chris Marley,
endowedly on completing your top 10.
Dexter Patterson, 11th, and the Jack Seers,
winning driver, Gordon Sheldon, Sam Osborne,
Ricky Colarde, who was on the hards,
and Rainford, who was also on the hards,
rounding out your top 15.
Again, those two will be, I think, to watch in race three,
and now they've got, assuming there's no rain, of course,
now they've got the hard tie out of the way.
They're going to have softs for the rest of the day.
Yeah, we'll bring you all the action from race two next.
Race two, then, and we would see four drivers
starting on the much-beligned hard tire,
with the rest of the grid that's starting on the soft tire.
So, as we expected, top three had to start on the hard tire.
But also, Morgan, following his failure in...
Electrical failure.
Electrical failure, yes, in race one,
thought, solid, hard tire, get it out of the way,
and make race three something to fight for, at least.
Now, if you cash in mine back about seven minutes,
I did gamble that I thought that the issue would be electrical,
and I was right.
So, my wheel knowledge isn't as washed as I feared it might be.
No great surprise, nobody else on the hard tire.
I think the bigger gamble of the day
is that if it rains in race three,
and that is where the most likelihood for rain is going to be,
obviously, the field can start on wet,
and therefore, it won't need to run the hard at all,
which makes sense.
Morgan, I also understand from the back of the grid,
there's no point making all that progress in race two,
so then I have to go backwards in race three
if it stays dry, so I get the gamble as well.
Satting on the soft tire, obviously, with eight laps of boost,
looked fairly odds-on from where he was,
knowing how good a start he normally gets as well.
You say that he was actually backing for the win.
When we said to each other at the start of the race,
who are you backing here?
You went for Doble, and I went for Taylor Smith.
Turns out we were wrong.
It was a poor start for both the PMR boys,
both Moffat and Doble seemed to struggle off the line,
whereas the top four seemed to get a decent,
a fairly equal start, even on that hard tire,
and made the most of it.
Yes, Satting got an absolutely incredible start,
as he always does, and sort of parted the ways
between two PMR Audi's, and he went through the middle.
Yes, and Chilton followed him through as well,
very hot on the start for him.
Ingram managed to get past Cook,
fairly early on, which I think was crucial for his race,
because, as we mentioned, being that first driver
that you come to on the hard tire,
you normally get pushed back through the field,
and unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to Cook.
It'd been better off racing a horse and chariot, I think,
because there was absolutely nothing in that car I'm racing to.
I know that they're struggling a little bit,
as it is, I think Cook's alluded to that in his interviews,
that it's not performing at the levels they would want it to be,
and they can't quite work out why.
Stick the worst tire on it,
and it just doubles and amplifies all the problems, isn't it?
It does, unfortunately.
Aaron Taylor Smith followed Ingram through soon after that,
and then we had the first incident of the race
with Moffat going off at Druids.
This looks very much like similar to what happened to Doble yesterday.
Unsettled the back end of the car, slid wide,
this time actually went off onto the grass,
and lost a handful of positions,
and consequently had to come into the pits as a result of that.
Yeah, we don't know the exact reason at the moment of recording
for why I had to go into the pits,
assuming it's going to be grass-related,
because there's a lot of wet grass that can go into the radiator,
which then overheats the car, even on a damp day.
Yeah, Ingram then had a go at Aaron Taylor Smith,
obviously Aaron Taylor Smith on that soft tire
had made decent progress at the start,
but he told him at the hairpin,
unceremoniously, that he wasn't coming fast.
Bit ambitious from Aaron Taylor Smith in fairness.
You don't really pass around the outside,
unless you've got a really good exit from the corner.
I think Ingram was a bit robust,
but I mean, he wasn't...
I don't think again we're into the always-you-must-leave-a-space territory.
I think in the case of you've got a long route to go around the outside,
and then the corner narrows off very quickly as you exit the corner.
Yeah, and Aaron Taylor Smith wasn't really even up to the B-post of the car.
So Ingram, I think, have every right to do that,
and Sutton was the beneficiary of that.
As is so often is.
Yes, quite.
Managing to take that position from Aaron Taylor Smith going up over the hill,
down to Nickelbrook.
Cook, by lap three, was already down to eighth position,
really showing how much won the car was struggling,
but also being on that tire, was making it struggle as well.
As I said, Moffat came into the pits also on lap three.
Sutton then made it fairly comfortably.
Passed Ingram, a boost pass coming out of the hole, and yeah, no defense.
There's no point.
I mean, look, this is the problem you're going to have when you have the hard versus soft tire.
It's noticeable enough when it's only one compound difference.
Obviously, this is the two extremes this weekend.
When you've got a car behind you on full boost and the better tire,
you've just got no hope of defending it.
From Ingram's point of view, what is the point?
If you tangle up too much, you're only going to take each other out,
and nobody benefits, or you're going to end up in a situation where you lose more places.
You might as well let the faster car go and worry about your own race.
And that's pretty much what Ingram said.
After the race, he was concentrating on trying to be able to fight Camish
and stay in and around where Camish would finish.
Obviously, with other instances that went on,
it would be a lot more beneficial for him in the end anyway.
Chilton and De Leon had made decent progress as well through the field,
both looking fairly comfortable in the car and making the most of their soft tire.
Yeah, absolutely.
De Leon fits and starts as we can show him there was a little bit of promise in that car.
Yep.
The problem I think for him and for WSR is that it's never across both cars,
and it's not consistent enough either.
I mean, yes, there's been a good race for him so far.
Can he make it three solid races?
That's going to be the million-dollar question.
On lap four, we saw Camish let Sutton through,
much the same as Ingram, no point fighting it, same team as well,
knew he was on the worst tire,
and then Sutton disappeared into the distance at a high rate of knots, didn't he?
Yeah, this is the biggest margin of win I've seen since the Jake Hill one at Snetson two years ago.
And even then, I think it was a bigger margin of what Hill pulled that day.
I think the race was over 13 seconds in the end.
Yeah, it was.
And he made the statement at the end of the race that
they kind of knew that the weather was going to come in towards the end of the race,
and he wanted to be safe on that, safe on track limits penalties,
and that tire offset just accentuated that speed difference between the cars.
Yeah, and as he said in his interview, when you've got guys in second and third,
both on the hard tire with minimal boost, it's child's play to e-couch and advantage.
You can pretty much e-couch at least a second on lap, if not more.
Then we had some more controversy.
Chilton, having made decent progress through,
then had a small coming together with Arante and Smith coming down Cascades.
Why would Rainford do this?
It looked like both of the cars got a front and rear bumper locked together,
much like Sutton and Cook.
It looked more clumsy in the Sutton and Cook one for me.
The Sutton and Cook one, as we discussed in race one, first lap of the race,
cold tires, cold brakes, I think both could have done better,
which is why I think neither will get a penalty,
both could have probably handled this a little bit differently.
I do agree with you that once the concept was made,
it was weird as far as it looked like they got locked rather than,
it wasn't necessarily what you would call a punt.
It was a, we're now together and can't get untogether.
Yeah. Consequently, Chilton spun off,
managed to keep it out of the barrier, however,
which was very lucky and grateful.
I would assume for the team as well,
not having to do any major repairs going into race three,
but it did drop him down all the way to the back of the field.
Shedham was also making good progress,
and there was a midfield battle pack building with De Leon,
Doble, Aaron Taylor Smith, and Smiley joining in,
and as we got through the race,
Paterson would join, that was the main part of excitement I would say throughout the race.
Robotton, Osbourne, I think even Chilton got on the back of it
towards the end of the race.
Yeah. I don't quite understand why Aaron Taylor Smith was so slow.
Now, you did raise a good point in the race,
that you may have been, the car may have been unbalanced
and out of kilter following two excursions onto the grass.
I would say two bits of contact.
The first one with Ingram getting nudged wide,
and then that contact with Chilton.
The back end of the car looked really loose and really unstable,
but in that whole battle pack, a lot of the cars looked fairly loose.
Yeah. I don't know. Is it a case of the cars are loose,
or is it a case that we are probably the bumpiest track on the calendar?
There are a lot of nicks and bumps in the tarmac.
Not quite as bad abrasions we've seen in Monaco this afternoon,
but there are some difficulties in the track.
I don't think that has a habit of making the cars look quite unsettled,
but yeah, Aaron Taylor Smith in particular was all over the place,
and it was notable that, I know you're going to come to this,
when did Leon got past him, just how quickly did they all gap him?
So Aaron Taylor Smith did pretty well to hold everybody back for that long,
and I'm amazed that there was no greater accident to be honest with you.
Consequently, with Aaron Taylor Smith being so slow,
but driving really well defensively, the big gap was made between Karmish and Ingram in second
and third, and then back to Taylor Smith in fourth, which meant that Ingram was actually
able to race his own race and try and attack Karmish and put the pressure on,
and that pressure did manage to relent and manage to get through in the end.
Weird one though, wasn't it? Because it was quite an easy path.
Karmish didn't let him through, but equally he didn't defend it.
He left a big old gap on the inside for Ingram to try.
I was a bit surprised with that, I have to say.
Within that battle pack in that midfield, Doble had got push wide by Aaron Taylor Smith,
and then De Leon managed to take advantage, getting through at Lodge,
and as you say, once he was through, he was so much quicker and just built a gap.
Absolutely. Cook, at this point, all the way down to 16th,
out of the points, hard tyre, really poor race from him, and I don't think he was expecting
to probably drop that far back, but it just shows that the major offset that there is
Yeah, let's say that car is clearly not in a happy place.
What is so bizarre is just how, I know they're all slightly differently set up,
and I know one's a manufacturer, one's independent, but just how
vast a gap there is between two of the same cars in the laser tool side
and the speedworks side, it's crazy just how big a gap that is.
Yeah, Mikey, Doble and Shedden then managed to get past Aaron Taylor Smith as well,
while Ingram got past Camish at the same point, and then lap 13,
13 seconds ahead, Sutton was, it was unbelievable, you saw the camera of him coming down Cascades,
and then you had to wait, and then you finally saw Ingram pop over the hill
in second place, and then in the final lap and a half, we managed to see a little bit of rain
towards the back end of the circuit, coming through those last couple of corners,
which got greasy very quickly, didn't it?
Yeah, an extra lap would have made a big difference, I think.
I think when they did reach it in the final lap, they were on the hot tires,
hot brakes still, and it meant they could negotiate it fairly well.
I think an extra lap, we could have seen some
hairier moments in that corner, shall we say?
Certainly, so then race two ended as follows, Sutton from Ingram and Camish,
both Ingram and Cascade will be highly pleased with that on the hard tire,
from De Leon from Doble from Shedden, Taylor Smith finished in seventh overall with his problems,
Kyle Ardman, good progress, got up to eighth, followed by Patterson,
Rainford, Osborne, Smiley, who at one point I think was nearly sixth,
and then just got shuffled out through the pack, followed by Roe Bottom, Dolly,
and Selby in the final point scoring position.
Yeah, ball number 11 was then pulled by Sutton, so he likes to give himself a challenge,
because he could potentially be doing this on the hard tire, depending on whether it
rains or not, which puts Osborne on par, which means Napper have a chance of winning all three
races at a track where they were, as quoted by the British Touring Car podcast, going to struggle.
Yes, going well.
We've got good wheel knowledge, haven't we?
It's going very well for us indeed.
Yeah, we'll see how race three turns out, the possibility still of rain to come,
and whether we will see any of the drivers start on a wet tire,
or whether we will see a hard, soft mix.
Race three then, and there was a slight amendment to the grid.
We did see a new camera angle coming into race three of the Arantayla Smith Chilton incident,
which we've discussed in race two, and in fairness, I think based on that camera angle,
we can sort of scrub the record a little bit and say that yes, a penalty for Arantayla Smith
probably was fair enough.
It's the naughty boy.
He did move over slightly, but slightly from that reverse angle, which I can see why Chilton
would have been aggrieved by it.
And consequently, he got a 10 second penalty added to his race time, which took him down
below Chilton in the final standings to 18th overall, which meant we had a change of pole
position, and it would be Chris Smiley starting on pole again, though on a hard tire.
Yeah, his teammate was in strife on the grid with a power steering issue they were trying to fix.
It's fair to say that Dolan has not had good luck this season.
It's always been of the bad variety.
It's a shame because I think there are moments and flashes where he's shown.
Is there a racer in there?
Yes, there's not.
Let's not pull that one out just yet.
But there's definitely flashes of you've seen where he is able to get the best out of the car.
Yeah.
It just feels like they're just that little.
Just needs everything to click together.
Yeah, that bit is just out of reach at the moment.
But hopefully resetting the summer break, which I'm about to go into.
Fresh restart.
Get it?
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll leave the jokes to me.
Here all day.
Yeah, you have been.
Yeah.
So yeah, it was a dry race, but Rain was starting to drizzle on the grid.
But again, it is one of those where it promised much delivered little.
Yeah, not much, a few spots, not even seeing really any wipers coming on.
So it was pretty much going to be from what we saw at the start, a dry race.
Of course, we had a mix of tires.
We had most of the field on a hard compound, but the important drivers are soft compound,
including Rainford, Collard, Camish and Ingram within the top 10.
Absolutely.
When we got away from the start, it was Rainford who made the best start, as you would expect,
but wasn't able to quite get the lead.
A little bit brave.
Became the meat in a Osborne and Darling sandwich.
We were fortunate that nothing more major happened when you got sandwiched between the two.
But did manage to get out the other side and slot in behind Smiley.
And then Aaron Taylor-Smith decided he wanted to try ballet in the car,
lost it on going to Old Hall with cold rear tires on his own.
And as he skated back onto the track, again, not his fault.
He lost complete control of the car at that point.
He collected Morgan, who looked very pleased with the incident.
An angry ginger man as was spoken about earlier in the day when he obviously had the issue.
It's not been a brilliant weekend for him, much out of his doing as well.
I was going to say, I do feel for him this weekend because if, you know,
he actually has been running quite well when the car ran,
he also took the gamble in race two and he would have been on,
he was on softs for this race.
And you do wonder what he could have done.
You can't account for things like that.
Of course not.
Yeah.
Both of them together, unfortunate.
And it's probably the smallest of touches, but with big consequences.
Put both of them into the barrier in the end.
Both of them out on the spot and recovery had to be made with their use for safety car.
Yep. Nick Hamilton was also quite lucky to avoid Adam Morgan's car.
He made a decision on which way he was going to go
and managed to avoid the spinning Morgan.
Yeah, he did well to avoid it.
But you have to say there's a bit of luck on that side as well.
There always is on these sort of things.
You pick a side and you hope that you've picked the right side basically.
Yeah. Buxlin had to take avoiding action as well.
He went the other side onto the grass and picked up a big chunk of it in his radiator as well.
Yeah, especially need to pit four to take it out and basically ruin my chances.
Luckily though, behind safety car,
he was able to get onto the back of the field once again.
Yeah.
Shedham was also out early of an issue.
It was confirmed that this was a driveshaft failure.
They often, if they're going to occur, they often occur on the first lap.
They sort of can fall out on the way to the grid, which is quite a weird thing to think about.
But it's the point where the car is under the most amount of torque and tension
at the start of the race.
And he got off, he jumped off the line and then nothing.
The driveshaft jumped up the car.
Yeah, exactly.
He was very much a sitting duck and it was lucky that no one actually collected him on the grid.
On the restart, by restart, by smiling.
See, I could do it too.
Oh, good as mine.
He decided to do a very slow restart and kind of bunched the field up.
Went late, bunched the field up.
But Rainford was able to take the lead at Cascade.
It kind of meant it was all for nothing really,
because Rainford was able to get that soft car around the outside.
He did say on board that he regretted it when he arrived at the scene of the overtake,
because he was so far off the racing line.
Still a little bit damp, maybe, at that point, but did complete the move to take the lead.
We then saw Collard go around Osbourne at the chicane, which is a good overtake.
It was a really good overtake.
He hung himself wide.
Fair play to Osbourne.
He left enough space for Collard to complete the move.
He then got himself into seconds after being able to nip past smiley,
difficult tire offset.
That's always tough.
Sitting ducks, especially when this weekend we've got that biggest offset of tire as well.
It was always going to be difficult.
And we actually saw the contra to that with how Cook then came through the field in this race
on that soft tire.
Absolutely.
Ingram clearly knew that Sutton would be in trouble with this race on a harder tire,
would struggle to make progress even for Sutton, and with that three brake horsepower reduction as
well, and decided that he needed to make the hay while the sun was semi-shining,
and squeezed by Camus.
I would suggest there's a little bit of a touch to pass on this one.
Yeah, it's borderline.
He unsettled the back of Camus' car, didn't he?
It was a late move into Old Hall, down there on the brakes from Tom, not down.
But yeah, he made it stick, and it doesn't seem to be too much controversy about it,
certainly from the commentator.
No, I mean, it's one of those that some people will say,
oh, shut up, this is a perfectly good two-in-car move.
And I understand that.
And there's other people that will say, well, you can't do that anymore.
That's two-in-car racing of 20 years ago.
It's probably just on the right side of legal.
But I will say, I think we are seeing a side of Ingram.
I would say desperation, but I would say that there's certainly a side to him now where he...
Oh, forceful.
Yeah, he can't do the Colin Turks style of just banking the points,
because he is already so far behind Sutton.
And this is one of the few challenges he's had all season,
where he's been in a better position than Sutton on the road
to then really try and push that advantage home.
But yeah, it'd be interesting to see if there are any more penalties applied.
If there are, we'll bring you up to date with that in our news update pod.
We then see an easy pass for Ingram to get past Smiley.
Harvey intimated teammates, a customer car maybe.
I don't really think Smiley made it easy for Ingram because he was another Hyundai.
I think Smiley realised what race he was in
and wasn't about to try and slow himself down for the sake of a car
that was guaranteed to get past him anyway.
You say that? He gave much more of a challenge to Kamish.
Yeah, maybe.
There I say.
Maybe, but then Kamish also made a bit of a
faff on the song and dance were getting past him in a way that Ingram didn't.
Then to be fair to Kamish, he has got three horsepower less now.
And I will say that given that there was much controversy that the Ford engine was too strong,
the Hyundai's were running quite well in this race.
And all weekend had a bit of power, it would seem.
Yeah, but Nav had taken the opening to his victories.
Yeah, I think I'll just throw two fingers at somebody because we want to see you.
Yeah, I don't think we're at the point where we're seeing restart letting Virtue buy.
I think that was a bit of a clumsy comment and I don't really think there's anything in that
before the conspiracy start.
Yeah, I think it's a case that he let somebody buy because he was far, far quicker.
And I don't actually think Kamish was as quick as Ingram and getting past, i.e.
maybe slightly.
Our right pace.
Yeah, maybe smiley for he could find me a little bit longer because he wasn't coming
at the same rate of knots that Ingram was.
We then saw Kamish, as I said, he was next to get by smiley a couple of laps later through
Lodge and then we saw the hard tire really fall.
Of course, it's also worth pointing out that the hard tire isn't terrible from the start.
From the start of the race, they are not always on a par, but they get worse as the race goes
on because the soft tires, it gets hotter, it gets stickier and you wear through it.
But you'll get there's a crossover period where the soft becomes so much better than the hard
and that's not initially that's not necessarily from the start of the race.
We then saw Chilton and Selby off.
Why Rainford decided to take out Chilton here?
I have no idea.
But there we go.
No, this was a very clumsy move by Tom Chilton.
Got up over the curb coming down to Cascades and it's one of those that, okay,
that there's not a lot he can do.
He's hit the curb.
It's unsettled the car.
It's fired him into Selby, but don't go over the curb.
For someone so experienced in Chilton, having been in the sport for nearly 20 years now,
if not longer, he knows these racetracks like the back of his hand.
Yeah.
Okay.
He wasn't sure maybe whether Selby was going to cut him off a bit more, but rubbish.
You know what the circuit is like.
You've already had a spin down Cascades in the day
and Selby was keen to make it aware to Mr. Chilton that he wasn't very happy.
No, and in fairness, I wouldn't be happy either.
He's had a fairly difficult weekend, arguably not his by his own doing.
I think you can look at race one and say it's one of those things rather than an actual mistake.
And then on this one, the move isn't on.
Chilton isn't even down the inside per se.
He's just chucked himself so hard over the curb that he's uncertain of the car.
Completely unsettled the car, yeah.
And banged into Selby, who is to quote Tim Harvey, just a passenger.
And he really is.
And then he hits the wet grass and it slides and he hits the tire barrier hard.
And again, we don't know about budgets and what was required, et cetera,
but he's had quite expensive weekends, which he can point to as not necessarily being his fault.
So yeah, I understand his anger.
And I will say this is very clumsy by Chilton.
And surprisingly so, given, as you say, that he was embroiled in a similar incident in race two.
Okay, that wasn't his fault.
I completely accept that.
But he was seeing firsthand how this can go wrong.
And I just, it just looks so clumsy and sloppy.
Unless something's broken on the car, which at the time of recording, we don't know.
If it has, then you can strike a lot of this on the record and, you know, fair enough.
But even though both finished, or sorry, both didn't finish,
I'd be surprised if it doesn't get a penalty or points in the license for it personally,
because it is just agreed.
I think the students will have a close look at it in the bus after the race, after the weekend.
And yeah, we could well see some comeuppance coming into Thruxton.
Absolutely. This called for another safety car.
It's a bit of a shorter period, this one.
Yeah, third one.
Yeah, you've already got the point by now.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
A good restart again by Rainford, despite Collar decided to put his Christmas decorations early
and try and get the flashing lights going.
I still think Collar was so close to the back of Rainford,
that Rainford couldn't see the lights flashing.
You could well be right.
They were certainly going and we will miss that if he doesn't manage to get the last five rounds of the season.
Six.
Five.
Six.
He's in for five.
Osborne then decided that, you know, he wanted to show Dover how picturesque
Alton Park is by just showing him the grass at the exit of the chicane.
Both quite lucky to get away, as I would suggest.
I wouldn't necessarily say from first look that anyone is completely out of control.
I'd say it's a bit of hard, fast racing for that part of the track.
What I will say on the flip on that though, to immediately cut myself off,
is that we have seen several good overtakes through there and several examples of how to
leave a space through there.
Yeah.
Yeah, how did you see that one?
Because your facial face suggests otherwise.
Facial face.
Your facial face.
Thank you, Michael, Owen.
Um, yeah, it was, yeah, 61 half dozen, the other just, it could have been done better,
but it's not the worst that we've seen this weekend.
No.
And then towards the end of the race, we finally saw a road bottom get past Chris Smiley.
I can't believe how long this took.
Obviously, he was on the soft.
He made an effort of it.
He's on the soft tire that the Catechli Mercedes clearly hasn't got the power that they're
hoping for.
They were sending comments.
It was really evident on the straights as well because Smiley was a camera car this weekend.
No, no, no.
The Hyundai engine's not good.
You could really see how he was pulling away on the straights when they both still have
boost.
And towards the end of the race, because of the safety car laps that we'd had,
most of the cars were still able to use boost all the way to the end of the race,
which is why we didn't actually see too many changes of position.
Yeah.
I think that all jokes aside that there is clearly some teething issues at play-toe racing.
Good report.
And they have got a little bit of work to do in this 67 week period because
the car has been down on power.
I will say surprisingly, and I might get powers, we'll go over it anyway.
I'd say that it seems to be worse on Robotoms car than Morgan.
I'd say out of the two at this point, Morgan has been the more consistently quicker of the two.
I know Robom took the pole at the opening round of the season, blah, blah, blah.
But I think out of actual consistency from that point, I'd probably argue Morgan has been
a bit more consistent.
Bia, they've certainly got work to do.
It was said in commentary that play-toe racing aren't particularly happy with the engine.
Play-toe not happy about something.
But yeah, they've got some work to do.
But this is what you expect.
As we said, this season is going to be very much.
You'd expect to be getting stronger as the season goes on.
And they are up against some absolute monsters in the field in terms of what cars are against.
But it was a surprise.
I think it will concern people within play-toe racing that this car wasn't able to get past
a car that's at the same engine.
Yeah.
And the wrong tyre.
And OK, I know you can offset it.
Not smiling to hit two.
Yes, no.
Yes.
I've driven a very good difference.
Yes, I agree with you.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
Race three as well.
But we saw how easily some other cars went past them.
OK, you could argue they have different engines, except that point as well.
But I think if you're a player racing, you're slightly concerned that it took such an effort
to get past.
Yeah, that's fair.
Right.
And then Rainford won the race fairly easily, second of the year.
It's going to take a lot for him to beat Sutton or Ingram to the title.
However, if he could finish best of the rest and he's making a strong claim for it at the moment,
he would certainly take that, I don't think.
Yeah, definitely.
And he's making, he's certainly, I think the difficulty for Rainford at this point is that
it's a case of he'll have a good race of a weekend, but it's not in Ingram Sutton levels
of having three really strong races.
He's got to continue to take his opportunities when they're there and he has done so far this
season.
Yes, he's had a round or two where he's been unfortunate and been unlucky,
thinking about brands, and he could well be a little further up in the championship,
certainly points wise, if that had gone his way rather than against him.
Yeah, I was thinking this weekend, the difference is, and I know cars, engines,
et cetera.
Ingram's taken two podiums and his other race wasn't too bad.
I've taken three podiums this weekend.
And Sutton's taken a podium, actually he's had a fairly, what do you say, poor weekend,
so he's had a less scoring weekend than before, but he's still scored good points,
and that's what's separating those two from the rest of the field.
So final race classification for race three as it stands.
Charles Rainford, one from Ricky Connell from Tom Ingram, Dan Hamish had a pretty good weekend
finishing fourth.
Josh Cook, we haven't really spoken about him, he came right through the field on that soft tire
and managed to end up fifth from I think 16th, 17th.
Very good recovery from Cook.
Dan Robbottom, as we said, got past Smiley, finished sixth overall from Smiley in seventh.
Patterson was the winning Jack Sears in eighth.
He won all three Jack Sears rounds this weekend from Sutton in ninth again on that hard tire.
Surprised that he struggled to get past like a Patterson and a Smiley,
because we normally find that Sutton, even on the wrong tire,
can overtake everyone else that's on the wrong tire.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Then we have Moffitt in tenth, Doble 11th.
Halton scoring points in 12th from Osborne in 13th.
James Daulding, even with that possible power steering issue finishing 14th
from Darryl De Leon in 15th.
Five drivers didn't finish and unfortunately for you, Max Buxton finished 16th.
He did, right.
Well, we'll jump to the predictions then as you've mentioned that there.
It's a third weekend in a row that I have got no points.
I am bewildered, frankly.
I'm struggling to not look smug.
Have you only got one this weekend?
I know, but two.
Oh, you're going to say, yeah.
But yeah, you've not hit, what's the opposite of purple?
A brown patch.
It's all gone a bit brown for you, hasn't it, mate?
There are fairly safe predictions this weekend as well as even more frustrating,
but we'll quickly run through them before we do our awards and wrap this up.
For Paul, waiting for Chilton, waiting for Dauble.
No points there.
Morgan to win the sprint, Shen to win the sprint.
No.
My three-race winners, Ingram, Collar, Cook, all three were close and had a podium this weekend.
I know it's not.
You had Ingram, Dauble and Taylor Smith.
You were way further off, but it doesn't matter.
They're the same amount of points.
All right, Daulding for the Jack Sears.
You were Patterson.
In terms of my general, I had Verty, Trout, Scorn, Napa, 88 to 103, so that didn't work.
The same team wins all independent races.
That didn't happen because I had Taylor Smith decided that he didn't want to.
And then we have Buckson score his first points of the season that I was expecting
rain.
I was expecting carnage.
We got that bit, but Buckson couldn't have cut them into points for me.
To be fair to him, he might not be feeling 100% with his viral infection.
Agreed.
He also owes me nothing.
I have a point of help.
He did do fairly well considering the weekend he had.
It's just, yeah.
You had Pia Marta outscoring Napa.
I've not been bothered working that one out.
No, I have been not as good as I thought they would be this weekend.
Yeah, you had at least two Toyota Podiums.
Taylor Smith let you down there to go on the TV.
It's a big time.
And then at least at least two safety car periods on the Sunday, which you are correct on.
We had three, so.
Yeah, should we get onto a wall?
Yeah, go on then.
I think just to add that in, I think that makes that 9-4.
And that's not to rub it in.
That's just to clarify the score.
I will look at it before we, in the summer break.
Work to do.
Like Plateau Racing, I have a few bits to iron out.
So then driver of the day weekend.
It's Dan Cambridge for me.
Very strong weekend.
His best weekend of the season.
Took a win and took a further podium.
Racewell yesterday.
Yes, completely greedy.
Definitely needed.
It is, I would say he's put it back in the title hunt,
but it's putting back into third in the championship,
which is probably where he can expect to try and finish by the end of the season.
Yeah, absolutely.
Great.
Villain.
I call for Aaron Taylor Smith.
As of I.
He let me down big time.
His own mistake in race three, pole tyres.
Mistake in race three.
Mistake in race two.
Mistake in the sprint to pole quality event.
And also, I'd argue race two should have been way further up the road
anywhere on the soft tyre.
So, yeah, now I'm with you in time.
A wasted opportunity by the essay.
Very much so.
Surprise goods.
I struggled with it.
Yeah, I did.
I've got for Patterson.
I thought he I thought there's a case that he was the best PMR driver today.
Yeah.
It was a case to make for that.
You could also argue Doben.
I wouldn't die on the hill, but I think Patterson was certainly in the conversation
and he's won all three Jack Sears.
I confidently won all Jack Sears as well.
And I wasn't.
I know it's raising mistakes.
I didn't back him for Jack Sears overall,
but I didn't think we'd have the same Jack Sears driver winning all three races.
And actually, he did it with minimal fuss and minimal competition.
So, yeah, I've got the Patterson on that basis.
I've gone for Napa.
I wasn't expecting them to do well this weekend.
And yes, okay, Selby's had a poor weekend.
Not necessarily on his fault, though.
No, exactly.
But Hamish Sutton have done well.
Osborne scored an all three.
Exactly.
And another 10 horsepower to turn down.
They obviously have had their pullback on three horsepower on the boost.
And they've shown that they can still drive around it.
Very good.
Surprise bad.
Has to be Dall in, unfortunately.
Indeed.
I wasn't expecting such a poor weekend.
And it's not all of his fault necessarily.
He's had some gremlins in that final race.
But he's been off Smiley this weekend.
And throughout the season, he's either been with Smiley or ahead of him.
So to drop back behind him this weekend,
I think he'll be disappointed himself.
Yeah, I've gone for Plateau Racing.
And I think that Morgan, you can't really.
Okay, okay.
Morgan in race three, yeah, you can't do anything about that.
That's fine.
But again, it's a circuit where on paper,
they could have and perhaps should have gone with that and haven't.
Morgan is the better out of the two drives at the moment,
in my opinion, as I doubt about that.
Robotton failed to score points in race one.
I don't really understand how.
Made a real hash or song and dance.
We're getting past Smiley.
Okay, is that just a car?
I'm not saying it's Robotton's fault necessarily.
I'm just saying that they're not in the window where I thought
they would be.
And I know I came into the whole season feeling that
we need to step down the hyper level and just be realistic.
However, I'd still, I think they're lower than where I thought
they were going to be, particularly this weekend.
Is it too strong a word to say I'm disappointed at this stage or?
I think so.
Yeah, I think it's a bit harshly disappointed.
We always know that, as we've said,
there are going to be teething issues.
A brand new team coming into the championship.
Yes, okay.
PMR have bought a brand new car in.
Napa have modified their car to become a saloon this season.
But the underpinnings are fairly similar.
And they're a team or teams that have been there for predominantly
good 456 years.
Plateau racing coming in fresh.
Yes, okay.
You're trying to drag in the best engineers and the mechanics
and the drivers that should be able to develop and take you forward.
But it's always going to be a challenge.
Can I ask a really tricky question?
Okay, so we've seen part.
I haven't seen that the all or nothing documentary yet.
That's what we were watching in the summer break.
I have seen the one he does with, what's his name?
Johnny Smith.
Johnny Smith.
Do you think there's an argument that doing a thing so differently,
which they're so keen to point out is actually a problem?
I don't think they're doing everything so differently to everyone else.
I think they're hyping it up to show that they're trying to do something different
because they're the people that are being followed around by the documentary and stuff
like that.
And then they're trying to do that because Plateau understands the sport.
He understands that he needs the sponsorship.
He needs the money brought in to be able to invest like Napa do, like Virtue do,
to be able to bring those results at the end of the season.
Because part of me is wondering that a lot of that with the Johnny Smith,
here's Johnny Smith, isn't it?
Yes.
Yeah, we're saying that no one's ever done it this way before.
And now I'm thinking, well, is there a reason that we've done it this way before?
Part of it is that Jason Plateau is one of the greatest salesmen that has ever lived.
He will find a way of, I'm looking at a gray roof tile at the moment,
he'll find a way to explain why that is the most cutting edge of whatever, etc.
I used to ask him what kind of thing.
Yeah, exactly.
I get that.
But I'm just, I'm at the stage now.
And again, I don't want to be too hyperbole and too pessimistic about it.
Because again, I think we have to take the step back and go,
they were never going to come and be a championship challenging team from the start,
despite what some people thought, that was never going to be realistic.
But I'm also at the point now, I'm thinking, apart from Donnington Park,
and even there, there were some problems, we've had three weekends in a row where they have been
rear to the rear of the mid-pack on a consistent basis.
Now, part of that, I think, is because they're a brand new team.
But I'd argue that at this point last, I suppose now because they're in a new car,
I was going to say at this point last year, a restart this far back,
but no, they had already had a season in it, albeit it was just a new car.
What I would say is this six, seven-week break that we've got coming up,
we know that they've built a third car.
They're going to have to do a hell of a lot of testing,
hell of a lot of simulation work to try and find those little nuances for the car.
Plato's already gone into the season going, oh, yeah, this is the most slippery car on the market.
Doesn't look particularly quick in a straight line at the moment.
I don't think it is.
I don't know whether that's solely down to the engine, whether it's down to the aero,
or whether it's down to how the drivers are wanting the car set up.
Now, Morgan said that the drivers are trying various different setups to try and find
that how best to work the car.
Which is all part of a new team.
Exactly. In the first half of this season, I think deep down, they're always going to go right.
Let's try and drill into these little bits and pieces and do quite big changes
that mean you're going to have some weekends that are really poor in result terms.
But you might also get other weekends where you get decent results.
And I think that was just a luck of the draw for that opening weekend at Donington.
Right then.
Any final thoughts before we close this podcast off?
Hingram's closed the gap very slightly.
I know it's only very slightly.
If this is Sutton's bad weekend, then I would like a bad weekend of a similar style.
But we have to try and look on the positives that everyone's going to go away into this summer break,
try and find those improvements in the car.
And Hingram said right at the end of the weekend,
if you can have a car like you had in race three for the rest of the season,
I think you'd be happy.
It's just a case of whether it's a good enough car to consistently then beat Sutton
to claw those points back.
What I would say is we're going to circuits that have historically
really favoured the Hyundai.
I'm thinking not kill.
Has also favoured Napa.
I'm thinking Silverstone and I'm thinking Croft in particular.
So we'll have to see.
Yeah, we'll have to see.
Obviously we'll bring you plenty of content in the 67 week break.
We'll have a news roundup.
You're determined to get me to do the arm movement aren't you?
We'll have a news roundup at the end of June for you
because there may well be some news in the off season.
And don't forget to subscribe.
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Comment.
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So yeah, thank you for all your help on that.
But yeah, until next time, that was Alton Park.
And enjoy your summer break.
But we'll bring plenty of content in the meantime.
Bye for now.
About this episode
Rain forecasts hung over Oulton Park, but “it was the weekend of rain that never came,” setting up a damp-to-drying Sunday where slicks, tire warm-up, and keeping heat in the rubber decided the order. Hosts work through incidents, penalties, and safety car timing—plus the ever-present risk of grass and debris getting into radiators. Across races, compound splits (soft vs hard), boost windows, and even electrical teething issues shape who could pass, defend, or recover.
