Oschersleben Report

Another WTCC Independents Podium for Boardman

Forton’s Tom Boardman completed another two strong races at the latest WTCC event in Oschersleben, Germany. A ninth place overall in Race 1 from 16th on the grid was followed by a second place in the Independents class, behind teammate and Independents points leader Tom Coronel in Race 2.

With rain starting to fall on a dry track as the cars left the pit lane at the start of qualifying, it was clear that an early quick lap on slick tyres would be required to determine the starting positions for Race 1. As the rain fell harder in some areas of the track than others it very much became a lottery based on track position and it created an unexpected grid line up. The Special Tuning UK run car lined up alongside triple World Champion Andy Priaulx and ahead of defending Champion Yvan Muller, but unfortunately it was still only in 16th place.

The Club SEAT UK backed Leon, now also carrying the KLSmotors.co.uk logos for the first time, the Galgate based company joining other local companies Bowland Water & Signs Express (Lancaster) in supporting the Lancashire drivers campaign, made excellent use of the long run down to the first corner from the Rolling start of Race 1, emerging in an excellent 7th place and further progress was made on Lap 2 seeing the double SEAT Cupra Champion up to 6th place. Initially Tom was also then able to pull away from the cars behind and start to hunt down the race leaders, but some minor suspension damage suffered in the hectic opening laps then started to affect front tyre wear and his pace slowed from the midpoint of the race. As a train of four factory cars closed in, and despite his best efforts the 25 year old was unable to prevent them all passing him with a couple of laps to go. Despite this set back he was still able to pull off a last corner move around the outside of the impressive new Lada Priora of Jaap van Lagen to finish 9th overall.

The standing start for Race 2 again proved to be a good opportunity to gain places before the tight left hand first corner, Tom able to end the lap inside the top 8. However the sensitivity of these cars to the suspension settings was again shown as from the mid-point of the race Tom again suffered from a lack of pace, something which may once again have been caused by some minor contact as the pack went through the first corner on the opening lap. Although he lost a few places once again to some of the factory cars, his pace and race craft against the other Independent runners ensured that he finished 2nd Independent and further strengthened his 5th place in the Championship, the leading driver in their first WTCC season.

Next round is in Imola, Italy on Sept 19th/20th