Gordon Shedden delighted in taking his first victory since joining Toyota Gazoo Racing UK at Oulton Park, saying that the victory in the reverse-grid race ‘means a lot to everybody’ in the team.
Shedden had lost his best lap time in Saturday’s qualifying session, which resulted in him failing to get out of Q1 and leaving him to start from 25th and last for the opening race on Sunday.
The Scot elected to run the hard tyre in the opening race and climbed to 16th by the chequered flag, and once on the faster soft tyre for race two he managed to break into the top ten, securing ninth on the final lap of the race.
It proved to be a crucial pass, as he was then selected to start the reverse-grid race three on pole position.
The heavens opened before the race, with the field starting on wet tyres – with the three-time champion surprised that no-one took a gamble to start on slicks.
Two separate safety car periods worked in Shedden’s favour, as he and others in the field began to struggle with wet rubber on a drying track, and the Toyota driver held off NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton to claim a first BTCC win since 2022.
“It was mega, it was really tricky race,” said Shedden to TouringCars.Net. “It was a difficult tyre call to start with – I thought some people would gamble on slicks.
“But to be honest, I thought our chance was gone. The strategy today, starting on the back row, was to use the hard tyre and two lots of softs, but we never got that opportunity to use the softs [in race three].
“I think we would have been strong relative to all the hard tyre runners in race three. But you know what, that doesn’t matter, we somehow got it over the line. I had to use all my experience to try and position the car in the right way at the right time.
“I’m delighted – it means so much to the team with all the effort they’re putting in. You hear the response and see them hanging from the pit wall.
“We’ve got work to do for sure – we need performance for the second half of the year, we make no bones about that – but we are working.”
Shedden admitted he would have hoped to have been in with a chance of victory even if the race had been dry, but that a win in any circumstances is a good morale boost for the Speedworks Motorsport team.
“Had it been dry in race three on the soft tyre I would have liked the same outcome, but it might have all panned out slightly differently.
“The safety car probably helped a little bit just to help the tyres cool down, but there was hardly any water anywhere to even cool them down. It was pretty nasty to drive, but everyone was obviously having the same problems.
“I could see in my mirrors nobody closing – as people used the boost they were getting closer and then falling back. But I just made sure I left myself enough [TOCA Turbo Boost] for the last six laps to try and defend where I needed to.
“I’d rather not be achieving it the way we are achieving it, I’d rather it was a little bit more straightforward, but it’s not.
“At the minute, to make that difference we need things that are a little bit leftfield; the weather has thrown different things in the mix because nobody has really run in the rain this weekend and we’ll take that as a benefit to us.
“It means a lot to everybody – a few smiley faces which is great.”