Toyota duo dig deep for hard-fought points haul at Oulton
Rob Huff and Andrew Watson tally top ten finishes in Cheshire
Toyota scoops Manufacturers’ trophy in second race of weekend
Speedworks-run squad vows to ‘come back stronger’ at Croft
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK duo Rob Huff and Andrew Watson concluded the opening half of the 2024 British Touring Car Championship campaign with a clutch of points-scoring finishes at Oulton Park last weekend (22-23 June) on Speedworks Motorsport’s home soil.
After putting 70 laps on the board between them during the two free practice sessions around the undulating Cheshire circuit, the pair proceeded to qualify 11th (Huff) and 14th (Watson) amongst the 20 high-calibre contenders in the country’s premier motor racing series.
Both drivers bolted on the harder of the two Goodyear tyre options for the curtain-raising contest, in order to get them out of the way before switching to the faster soft-compound rubber for the remainder of the day. Having deployed his razor-sharp reactions to avoid a stricken Colin Turkington directly ahead of him on the grid, former FIA World Touring Car Champion Huff went on to register his eighth top ten finish of the season, running in close company with fellow Toyota driver Aiden Moffat throughout.
In the sister red, white and black, British-built Corolla GR Sport, Watson unfortunately picked up a five-second penalty for a false start that restricted him to 14th in the classification, but that did not stop the 29-year-old Northern Irishman from showcasing his skills by pulling off a tremendously brave pass on Mikey Doble on the blast from Knickerbrook up to Druids at two-thirds distance.
With both TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK drivers moving onto the soft tyres for race two, hopes were high, but a chaotic first lap that left Adam Morgan’s BMW stranded broadside at Old Hall sent Huff and Watson skating across the grass and plummeting down the order through no fault of their own.
In front of the live ITV4 television cameras and a capacity trackside crowd, Cambridgeshire ace Huff battled back up to eighth – in the thick of the fight for the runner-up spoils – but tyre damage caused by his earlier off-piste excursion subsequently dropped the 44-year-old to 11th. He took the chequered flag right behind Watson, who engaged in a number of lively scraps along the way, including with four-time title-holder Turkington. The race’s Manufacturers’ trophy for Toyota at least offered some consolation.
Further misfortune followed in the weekend’s finale, as a false start penalty for Huff cost the Fewkes Sport Management director a second top ten finish of the day – relegating him to 12th – while reigning Jack Sears Trophy winner Watson was delayed by contact on the run towards Cascades, leaving him a frustrated 14th.
The BTCC now enters its traditional summer break, with the season set to resume at Croft in North Yorkshire on 27-28 July.
Christian Dick, Team Principal, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK, said:
“In terms of results, it clearly wasn’t the weekend we had been hoping for and it’s no secret that we still have a bit of pace to find, but I feel we were also denied better finishes by circumstances outside of our control.
“As a case in point, race two could easily have had an alternative ending had it not been for the first corner mêlée. Josh [Cook] showed what the Corolla was capable of on the soft tyres by taking such a dominant win, and the only major difference was that he came out of Turn One unscathed and in a strong position, whereas Rob and Andrew had to take avoiding action, which cost them ground.
“There’s nothing to say they wouldn’t have battled their way up to the front as well, but they both pushed hard throughout and provided plenty of entertainment for all the fans watching trackside and on TV.
“The bottom line is that we’re all very committed racers and none of us are satisfied with fighting further down the field, so we will be leaving absolutely no stone unturned over the next few weeks to ensure we come back stronger at Croft – and ready to chase down some silverware during the second half of the season.”
Rob Huff, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK, said:
“It was a very trying and character-building weekend, I think you could say! We sacrificed the results a bit in an effort to find a better route with the set-up and that paid off in so much as the car improved with every session, but ultimately we are clearly still lacking a bit of all-round performance to be challenging regularly up at the sharp end, which is where we all believe we belong.
“I had a few mechanical gremlins with the gearbox that hampered me at the start of the races and Andrew and I both got a bit unlucky in race two when we had to take evasive action, which left me with a cut on one of my front tyres from running over debris. That caused some delamination, which in turn cost me a few positions in the final laps, so that was obviously frustrating. On the positive side, the whole team worked exceptionally hard as always and it was great to see Josh get a win.
“The reality is, it has been such a quick-fire start to the season that once we’ve got the cars back to the workshop after a race weekend, debriefed, re-prepped and then shaken them down again for the next event, there’s barely been any time left to focus on making significant changes – but we are keeping our chins up and our heads down, and we’ve got a few things up our sleeves that we’ve been working on behind-the-scenes which should help us to take a step in the right direction ahead of the second half.”
Andrew Watson, Driver, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK, said:
“It was a tough weekend, and we struggled right from the word ‘go’, which put us immediately on the back foot. The balance of the car didn’t actually feel too bad, but we just didn’t have the speed. We kept making changes and trying things out on the set-up in an attempt to unlock a bit more performance – pursuing different directions with all four cars – but none of us found the ‘silver bullet’. All it meant was it felt different every time I took to the track, and we were never able to establish a stable platform.
“It was strange, because we had all expected to be a lot closer to the front at Oulton so there was plenty of head-scratching going on and while we largely stayed out of trouble at least, our results definitely reflected our lack of pace.
“We’ll go away and use the break to have a bit of a re-think. Our form over the past two race weekends is clearly not where we want to be, so we need to spend some time analysing where we can make improvements and then try to hit the ground running next month at Croft!”
Images: Jakob Ebrey Photography