Three-time British Touring Car Championship title winner Gordon Shedden won a thriller of a final race at Oulton Park.
Shedden’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport sat on pole position on the reversed grid, and was one of the few leading contenders to have a set of soft-compound Goodyear tyres available.
Heavy rain shortly before the start meant everybody went to the grid on wet-weather rubber, and that appeared to have nullified Shedden’s advantage.
But in his comeback season after a two-year layoff from the BTCC, Shedden showed that all the old fire is still there by instantly opening a 1.5-second lead over the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of reigning champion Jake Hill, who had made sharp progress from fifth on the grid.
Hill began to close the gap, and was challenging Shedden for the lead when the safety car emerged to retrieve the stranded Cupra of Max Hall from the Lodge Corner gravel trap.
Once the race got going again, Hill was again pressing Shedden when the safety car was called for the second time. A nudge from Tom Chilton at the Hislop’s chicane had sent Mikey Doble’s Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra into the barriers, while the bonnet of Chilton’s Hyundai popped up onto his windscreen, forcing him to the pits and retirement.
Once the race went green, there were five more laps remaining, with a leading quartet of Shedden, Hill, plus the two Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus STs of Ash Sutton and Dan Rowbottom.
Sutton appeared strong as the track dried, but was gifted second place in the end when Hill slewed sideways at Cascades and onto the grass during the penultimate lap.
Shedden thereafter had enough of a buffer to take his 53rd BTCC victory by 0.741 seconds over Sutton.
“It’s a weekend of two halves,” said Shedden, who had all his hot laps deleted in qualifying for track limits. “Obviously starting at the back this morning and coming through to win race three was just epic.
“I thought we played a good strategy in trying to use the hard tyres in race one. Lo and behold, we never got to use the soft tyres in race three.
“I thought our chance was gone, but the balance was good and I had to use all my years of experience to try and sort that job out. So thankful to get it over the line.”
Rowbottom – another to have a soft set of Goodyears available should conditions have remained dry – posed a stiff challenge to Hill in the early laps, but just about fended off the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai of Sutton’s title rival Tom Ingram for third.
Ingram had appeared down and out, slumping to ninth by the time of the second safety car, but as the track dried he was flying, as his choice for an ‘intermediate set-up’ on the Hyundai began to reap dividends.
Another Excelr8 Hyundai was fifth in the hands of Senna Proctor from Dan Cammish (Alliance Ford) and the recovering Hill.
Completing the top 10 were James Dorlin (Speedworks Toyota), Charles Rainford from the back of the grid in his WSR BMW, and the Alliance Ford of Sam Osborne.
Josh Cook was another to run at the front, his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R attacking Hill for second place, before his bid to dive down the inside at Lodge ended with a visit to the gravel trip, and eventual retirement.
Dexter Patterson pitted for slicks under the second safety car and set a series of fastest laps, but ran out of time to catch the pack before the race went green so could only progress to 12th in his Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leon.
The Scot was later excluded after his car failed the ride-height test. Remarkably, this handed Independents victory to Dan Lloyd, whose Restart Racing Hyundai had been rebuilt following its heavy crash in race two and who had shot straight on at the hairpin in the early stages and had to complete the extra 0.5-mile loop of the full circuit.
BTCC Oulton Park - Race 3 results
| Cla | Nº | Driver | Car / Engine | Laps | Time | Delay/Retirement |
| 1 | 52 | Gordon Shedden | Toyota | 18 | 30'14.584 | |
| 2 | 116 | Ash Sutton | Ford | 18 | 30'15.325 | 0.741 |
| 3 | 32 | Dan Rowbottom | Ford | 18 | 30'16.056 | 1.472 |
| 4 | 80 | Tom Ingram | Hyundai | 18 | 30'16.176 | 1.592 |
| 5 | 18 | Senna Proctor | Hyundai | 18 | 30'19.970 | 5.386 |
| 6 | 27 | Dan Cammish | Ford | 18 | 30'20.388 | 5.804 |
| 7 | 1 | Jake Hill | BMW | 18 | 30'20.975 | 6.391 |
| 8 | 132 | James Dorlin | Toyota | 18 | 30'24.269 | 9.685 |
| 9 | 99 | Charles Rainford | BMW | 18 | 30'25.280 | 10.696 |
| 10 | 77 | Sam Osborne | Ford | 18 | 30'26.109 | 11.525 |
| 11 | 16 | Aiden Moffat | BMW | 18 | 30'28.080 | 13.496 |
| 12 | 17 | Dexter Patterson | Cupra/TOCA | 18 | 30'28.176 | 13.592 |
| 13 | 26 | Finn Leslie | Toyota | 18 | 30'29.221 | 14.637 |
| 14 | 123 | Dan Lloyd | Hyundai | 18 | 30'29.677 | 15.093 |
| 15 | 2 | Daryl DeLeon | BMW | 17 | 30'30.293 | 1 lap /15.709 |
| 16 | 33 | Adam Morgan | Hyundai | 16 | 30'30.169 | 2 laps /15.585 |
| (12) | 12 | Stephen Jelley | Honda/TOCA | 13 | 22'29.076 | Retirement |
| (14) | 28 | Nicolas Hamilton | Cupra/TOCA | 13 | 22'29.509 | Retirement |
| (17) | 3 | Tom Chilton | Hyundai | 10 | 17'13.905 | Retirement |
| (7) | 88 | Mikey Doble | Vauxhall/TOCA | 9 | 15'15.928 | Retirement |
| (14) | 93 | Max Hall | Cupra/TOCA | 5 | 8'12.296 | Retirement |
| (22) | 66 | Josh Cook | Honda/TOCA | 5 | 14'50.525 | Retirement |
| 22 | Chris Smiley | Hyundai | 0 | - | Retirement | |
| 40 | Árón T.-Smith | Toyota | 0 | - | Not started | |
| 50 | Nick Halstead | Vauxhall/TOCA | 0 | - | Not started | |
