Carl Boardley, Adam Shepherd take Oulton Park wins

Carl Boardley and Adam Shepherd shared victories in the two TCR UK Championship races at Oulton Park.

Qualifying had seen Boardley score pole at the wheel of his Cupra Leon Competición, although it was a close run thing with Callum Newsham and Adam Shepherd both lapping less than a tenth of a second away from top spot on the grid.

Boardley held the lead at the start of the race as Shepherd jumped ahead of Newsham into turn one, with the two Cupra racers then banging doors going through Cascades for the first time – whilst further down the order, Will Powell was tipped into a spin that dropped him to the back.

Boardley and Shepherd again banged wheels going into the final corner before Shepherd took the lead across the line, only for Boardley to regain the position going into turn one.

From that point on, the defending champion would remain out front as Shepherd came under pressure from Brad Hutchison and a charging Joe Marshall – who both moved ahead when Shepherd ran wide at the hairpin on lap four.

Marshall then overhauled Hutchison on the exit of Cascades to move into second but couldn’t chase Boardley down as the Audi man had to settle for the runner-up spot, with Hutchison in third having dropped away from the lead pair.

Shepherd took the flag in fourth ahead of Luke Sargeant and Darron Lewis, who taken the flag in fifth place but had to deal with a five second penalty for exceeding track limits. Will Beech took Gen1 Cup honours in seventh spot, beating Rick Kerry to class honours.

Front-runner Newsham endured a race to forget with an early spin at turn one leading to him being forced into a pitstop that dropped him off the lead lap.

The reverse grid second race kicked off with series promoter Stewart Lines on pole position in his Audi but there was drama behind when Shepherd was tipping into a spin and went off into the barriers before rejoining, and Kerry failed to get away from the line after stalling his Cupra.

Heading through Cascades, Lines lost the rear of his Audi and suffered a spin, leaving the cars behind to take avoiding action – but when Beech then spun his VW, he was collected by Marshall to put both out on the spot and force a red flag stoppage.

The grid was reformed in its original order for the restart – undoing a storming lap from Newsham who had gone from eleventh to second – with the action getting underway behind the safety car with Lines leading Steve Laidlaw and the field split in two when Boardley was caught napping back in seventh.

It meant Shepherd was the leading Gen2 runner towards the front and he wasted little time in moving through to the front of the pack, with a recovering Boardley eventually coming through the field to slot into second just before an off for Mark Smith saw the safety car called out.

The action resumed for a dash to the flag over 90 seconds, with Shepherd nailing the restart and staying out front to beat Boardley, with Darron Lewis taking the flag in third spot to grab a podium.

Post race however, Shepherd was hit with a ten second penalty after it was deemed that the team had been working on his car when the one minute board was shown ahead of the restart but the decision was then overturned for a procedural indiscretion with the displaying of the timing boards – giving Shepherd the victory back.