BTCC: Cammish begins to claw back points gap with stellar Oulton Park weekend

Dan Cammish had an excellent weekend in Oulton Park, bring down the points gap to both Ash Sutton and Tom Ingram ahead of the summer break.

Cammish started off the season with a very unlucky qualifying race at Donington Park. Starting the inaugural ‘Race To Pole’ on the second row of the grid, he would end up being caught up in the aftermath of the incident between Sutton and Ingram, which sent his teammate spinning off the road and into his path. Cammish tried everything to avoid him, clipping the back end of Sutton taking off his rear bumper.

He would try and gather himself back up quickly but would drop to tenth place. He would not be deterred, pushing back up the field before being pushed back down the order on the final lap to fourteenth place. A penalty would promote him to thirteenth post-race, but a difficult start to the season for Cammish.

His weekend would improve from there, climbing to fourth place in race one with an excellent drive from thirteenth on the grid, rebuilding on what he lost out on in Qualifying while also minimising long term damage sustained from it. He would the go even better in race two, claiming second and only behind Sutton in another solid drive passing Mikey Doble and Charles Rainford. Race three Cammish would remain in the points but with limited amount of boost, he was not able to climb the order, finishing in tenth place.

Brands Hatch would be a different story, claiming third in the Race To Pole and a fourth in the first race, would yet again become a very unlucky with the weather conditions and the timing of the end of the race. He put on the wet weather tyres as the track seemed to crossover, with Daniel Rowbottom notably going a lot quicker as he had pitted earlier on. Making the call to switch to wets would ultimately put him a lap down in the hope he would gain positions later on from people pitting or staying out and losing even more time. However, it ended up costing him with a red flag ending the race earlier after multiple drivers went off at Druids. His race three was even more problematic, losing the rear at Paddock Hill Bend dropping him to the back of the field and unable to get back inside the points.

Snetterton would be a more calm weekend in terms of results for Cammish, a solid fourth place in the Race to Pole after spending the majority of the race fighting with Ingram. He would spend race one fighting with Josh Cook and Daryl De Leon to come home fifth. Cammish would continue with good form with another fourth place in race two before claiming ninth in race three.

Sitting 75 points behind heading into Oulton Park, a great weekend before the summer break would be exactly what Cammish needed, and he delivered in all aspects. Qualifying would see him take first within his group with the fastest time to start second on the grid for the Qualifying Race just behind Árón Taylor-Smith. Cammish would attack Taylor-Smith all race, remaining a constant thorn in the side of the Toyota before Taylor-Smith was given a time penalty for weaving at the end of the Safety Car, which gave Cammish enough incentive to stay behind and take pole position.

Race one would see Cammish have to fend off Cook and Sutton in the first few turns before the pair behind made contact causing Sutton to fall down the order. From here, Cammish mainly had to defend from Cook and Ingram who was just behind, as the pair consistently applied pressure to him, but a firm defence and a stellar drive gave him his first victory of the season and well deserved at that.

He would continue that momentum into Race two, this time having to run the hard compound of tyres for taking a podium in race one plus having only one lap of boost. Cammish would defend well from Ingram on the opening few laps, before being given the opportunity to pull a small gap due to Ingram having to deal with Taylor-Smith and Sutton who was trying to come through. Cammish would soon lose out on the lead though, opting to not fight his teammate on lap three who was on the softer tyre with significantly more boost than him. He would maintain his gap to the rest of the field except Ingram who started applying pressure from lap five onwards all while the rest of the field desperately tried to pass Taylor-Smith behind.

This left Cammish and Ingram with an opportunity to pull a gap to the soft runners in which they would need to keep hold of podium places. Cammish’s defence became more and more difficult as the race progressed and by lap thirteen, Ingram made the decisive move, diving up the inside at the final corner to take second away from Cammish. For the final two laps, Cammish remained with a comfortable gap to De Leon behind who had finally passed Taylor-Smith to come home with third place.

Starting from ninth on the grid in race three, Cammish now had the soft tyres while six of the eight cars in front were on hard tyres with Ingram behind him also on softs. Cammish would get a solid start, passing Doble and De Leon in the opening few corners before a Safety Car would be deployed for an incident between Tom Chilton and Lewis Selby.

When the race went green again, he would immediately pass Dexter Patterson on the exit of turn one and was passed by the braking point of Cascades. He would then pass Sam Osborne for fourth before losing out to Ingram who came charging passed with a dive up the inside into turn one. Cammish would reclaim fourth, having to overtake Chris Smiley on lap seven at the final corner, going on to finish there to end an excellent weekend and scoring the most points of anyone with 61 points.

He leaves the weekend only twelve points adrift of Ingram in second and now 60 points off of Sutton who leads the championship. If this momentum continues, he can catch Sutton at the rate of points he earned this weekend. However, no driver has come back from a seventy-five-point deficit in the BTCC, with the largest deficit come back from was Shedden in 2016 being 55 points off of Sam Tordoff entering the second half of the season. With 18 races to go, Cammish has more than half the season to close the gap but being in equal machinery with such a margin would be a difficult task to pull off.