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Team Dynamics set the pace in testing at Oulton Park

By MJP Media | 5 March 2014

Today saw the second consecutive day of BTCC testing at Oulton Park as teams looked to rack up the miles ahead of the official Donington Park media day and test session on March 18th.

Matt Neal in his Honda Civic Tourer ahead of Pirtek Racing's Martin Depper

After the 9 British Touring Car Championship cars of yesterday, a further 7 cars were in evidence at the Cheshire circuit today. Defending champion Andrew Jordan and his new Pirtek team-mate Martin Depper were first out of the blocks in the morning with Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden in the new Honda Civic Tourers close behind. A lone Airwaves Racing Ford Focus piloted by Fabrizio Giovanardi was next out and looked to be bang on the pace from the word go. Finally, we saw the new United Autosports team of James Cole and Glynn Geddie out on track in their stunning looking dark blue Toyota Avensis'.

The teams were all running fairly closely on times as they all sought to get some data on the dry and rapidly warming track. Due to the limited number of cars present during the day, laps were plentiful and because most of the other cars on track were full GT3 cars, there wasn't a lot of 'being held up' which is so typical of general track days. One stunning non-BTCC car was the Bentley Continental GT3 prototype which made a noise like approaching thunder and arrived like lightning until it had a transmission failure that spat it off the circuit in what appeared to be a very expensive accident which caused the red flags to be deployed, temporarily halting the session.

Fabrizio Giovanardi getting familiar with his Airwaves Racing Ford Focus

In the run-up to the lunch break, all of the British Touring Car Championship cars were out on track with Fabrizio Giovanardi in particular putting in some lengthy runs as he sought to acclimatise himself with the Ford Focus. Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden were concentrating on shorter set-up and data runs whilst the Pirtek Racing Civics were swapping lap times with each other.

After the lunch break, the teams were able to make some longer runs based on the morning's data and perfect their setups with United Autosports' James Cole and Glynn Geddie in particular gaining more valuable time in the cars. The only downside for the BTCC stars was when Gordon Shedden on fresh rear tyres and bedding-in a set of brakes, had a lock-up and slapped a barrier causing extensive but superficial damage to the left-hand side of his car.

Glynn Geddie in his United Autosports Toyota Avensis

As the teams all look for that extra bit of pre-season testing, this has been a valuable couple of days at Oulton Park and we can't wait see them all together at the Media Day at Donington Park on March 18th.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media