Daryl DeLeon increased his Jack Sears Trophy lead on what was an otherwise bruising British Touring Car Championship race day for WSR at Oulton Park.
The Anglo-Filipino driver scored a pair of overall points finishes at the Cheshire track and now holds a 25-point lead in the JST standings over his WSR BMW stablemate Charles Rainford with half the season gone.
“It’s been a challenging weekend and the cars have been through it a bit, but there are some positives to take,” commented Team Principal Dick Bennetts. “The pace of the BMWs in the damp conditions in Race Three was strong, which shows how much progress we’ve made in setting the car up for greasy conditions, Jake (Hill) was looking good for a podium until the end and Daryl’s (DeLeon) increased his Jack Sears Trophy lead too. We need to use the summer break to do what we can to find more speed and aim for a stronger second half of the year.”
Daryl’s standout performance came in wet and slippery conditions in Race Three as he climbed from 15th on the grid to eighth within a handful of laps, only to have his progress thwarted when two cars collided ahead of him and left him with no way of avoiding contact.
A resultant puncture led to an unplanned pitstop, a loss of a lap while damage was checked over and a switch to dry-weather tyres on a now drying circuit.
With conditions not suited to these hard-compound rubber, his progress was restricted to a 15th-place finish in what became a race of attrition.
Team-mate Jake Hill was the team’s highest points-scorer over the weekend in his Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330i M Sport.
The 2024 champion managed his wet rubber on a drying track in Race Three to climb from fifth to second early on, but with conditions drying and his rear tyres losing grip, a minor braking error led to an off-track moment on the penultimate lap.
That dropped him to seventh spot, which equalled his Race One result – a finish that was achieved from 13th on the grid. His best finish of the day was fifth in Race Two.
This was achieved without Jake’s Race Engineer Craig Porley – who was hospitalised on Friday night after suddenly falling ill – but who had recovered enough to return home by Sunday night.
LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR’s Charles Rainford was elbowed off-track on the opening racing lap of the day and fell to 11th – where he finished – and was even more unfortunate in Race Two as another driver spun him into the tyre barrier at Old Hall.
The Brands Hatch race winner had to start the final race from the back of the grid, but made use of some clever set-up choices to climb to ninth by the finish; a result that kept him second in the JST points.
His team-mate Aiden Moffat recovered from being spun by another car into the hairpin tyre wall in Race One to take a points finish in 15th.
Choosing to use the hard-option Goodyear tyre – which must be used in one of the three races – he found his grip limited and finished 16th: instead opting to save his remaining soft rubber for the finale. The Scotsman drove well to 11th in the wet Race Three.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 5/10
DRIVERS
1/ Ash Sutton – 233 points
2/ Tom Ingram – 222
3/ Dan Cammish – 161
4/ Dan Rowbottom – 159
5/ Jake Hill – 143
6/ Adam Morgan – 119
10/ Charles Rainford – 85
12/ Daryl DeLeon – 63
13/ Aiden Moffat – 63
MANUFACTURERS
1/ Ford – 446 points
2/ Hyundai – 424
3/ BMW – 346
4/ Toyota – 230
TEAMS
1/ NAPA Racing UK – 410 points
2/ Team Vertu – 390
3/ Restart Racing – 207
4/ LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR – 205
5/ Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport – 160
6/ One Motorsport – 156
8/ WSR – 104
JACK SEARS TROPHY
1/ Daryl DeLeon – 231 points
2/ Charles Rainford – 206
3/ Sam Osborne – 193
4/ James Dorlin – 185
5/ Ronan Pearson – 157
6/ Dexter Patterson – 150
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