Ollie Taylor called his drive from eighth to second in the race two of the TCR UK series at Oulton Park his ‘race of the year’ after securing the position on the final corner of the final lap.
Taylor circulated in the opening laps of the race in sixth after making limited ground at the start, but that became fifth when Derek Palmer went off in his Alfa Romeo further up the road.
Taylor then seized an opportunity to capitalise on contact between Stewart Lines’ CUPRA and Dan Lloyd’s Volkswagen, passing both on lap seven, including getting past Lloyd with a brave move at Island bend.
Finally, Taylor caught Lewis Kent’s Hyundai on the final lap of the race and when the youngster went wide at the last corner, Taylor was in a position to be able to slip his Honda past and claim second, behind eventual winner Ash Sutton, to secure a Pyro Motorsport 1-2 result.
“It was almost the race of the year for me,” Taylor told TouringCars.Net. “At the start of the if you’d have said P2 from eighth – I would have said no way!
“For the first six or seven laps I didn’t really see it being any different, I just thought I wasn’t going to be able to get past the guys ahead.
“We had a little bit of fortune from other people’s mistakes – Derek taking himself off and incident with Stewart and Dan.
“I didn’t quite think I was going to get past Dan, but I just carried on at 100% pace, had a run at him and braved it out around the outside at Island, which I think it’s quite a good move – probably the decisive move of the race. I had to just nail it.
“When I saw he and Stewart had contact, I didn’t plan to slow down and avoid it, I just kept my foot in, everyone dissipated, and I came through the middle.”
Taylor believes that sustained pressure on 18-year-old Kent in the final laps was what helped him to claim second – his fourth runner up position this season.
“I didn’t seem to catch Lewis that much. I thought third place points would be good, but then two laps from the end I thought, actually, it could be a second place, so I kept the pressure on Lewis.
“With all respect he’s quite young and susceptible to pressure, and once I was quite comfortable that Dan wasn’t too much of a threat I could stop looking in my mirrors and concentrate more on Lewis.
“I just kept showing him up the inside. I didn’t accept third place, but on the last lap I thought this is good, but I got a good run out of Druids and pressured him into the last corner.”
“P8 to P2 – I’ll take that all day long. We made quite a drastic set-up change on the car between the races. We often don’t do enough of a change between race one and race two, so the car was handling good. The tyres had really gone at the end, though.
“That was a very good result and I’m happy with that.”