Tom Oliphant: ‘I didn’t expect to win the race’

Team BMW’s Tom Oliphant admitted that he didn’t expect to win the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Brands Hatch, having started from fourth on the grid.

Olihpant has been the top BMW throughout the weekend thus far, but from the second row of the grid the WSR driver had not expected to claim the win.

At the start of the race the 31-year-old got a better start than all around him, as both of the Team Dynamics front-row starters made poor getaways.

Although Gordon shedden fought his way back into second in the early laps, Oliphant had by this stage opened up a near four-second advantage.

Despite Shedden closing the gap right down by the end of the race – including being in a position to almost challenge for the lead as the duo came up to lap Rick Parfitt Jr on the last corner of the last lap – Oliphant held on to take his second win in the BTCC.

“I’ve had terrible luck this year,” said Oliphant, who moved up to sixth in the drivers’ standings. “We’ve had some great pace and I’ve loved driving the car.

“I didn’t expect to win the race – I just got such a good start and then for the first five laps I was just in quali mode. I got a gap and then I just managed the tyres.

“I expected a Honda to come back at me late on in the race and I just left enough in the tank so I could push again and I was in the process of doing that and Rick, a good friend of mine, decided to make it slightly more difficult than it needed to be on the last corner.

“I was just trying to control the race and not make any mistakes. Gordon is a very experienced racing driver and as soon as he got past and into second, I knew I would have to work for it.”

Oliphant said that coming across the Hyundai of Parfitt on the final lap had caused him some concern.

“The last two corners were not enjoyable, I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen and I obviously couldn’t put myself at risk by trying to overtake on the outside.

“I think as soon as Rick noticed I was right with him he did move out of the way and obviously that didn’t cost me a win, so that’s absolutely fine.

“Having Gordon hunting you down for 24 laps is nerve wracking enough! I’m just over the moon and the car has been brilliant all weekend so I’m pleased to bring it home for my car crew and my engineers who did an amazing job.”

Faced with having to carry the full 75 kg of success ballast for race two – having carried none going into the race – Oliphant admitted that he wasn’t too concerned given that his nearest rivals will also be carrying significantly more weight than in race one as well.

“We tested with weight around here and I tried max ballast for a session in winter testing. I know what it will do, so we’ll just make a set of adjustments to adjust for it.

“But I’ve grabbed a win;  everyone starting around me is also going to be on weight – Gordon, Dan, they had no weight [before the race], so they’re all going to have it now.

“I’ll just do exactly the same process in race two – get my head down and put in the best laps I can.”