Mikey Doble was ‘ecstatic’ to score his maiden podium finish in the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, even though the Power Maxed Racing driver lost out on a win to Jake Hill late on in the final race.
Doble may have missed out on getting beyond Q1 in Saturday’s qualifying session, by just one thousandth of a second, but the 25-year-old made amends on Sunday with another consistent string of results.
With the hard tyre on his Vauxhall Astra for the opening race, Doble made up one place to take the chequered flag in 12th, which later became 11th when a rival was handed a penalty.
From the sixth row of the grid for race two and with the soft tyre bolted on, Doble gained ground at the start, despite a first corner incident, and had then fought his way up to seventh past NAPA Racing UK’s Daniel Rowbottom by the third lap.
He was ultimately then promoted to sixth when NAPA’s Ash Sutton had to pit due to bodywork damage, which is where he finished the race.
Doble’s chances of ending the weekend with a strong result were then boosted when he was randomly drawn to start from pole position for the final race of the day, with team-mate Árón Taylor-Smith alongside.
Doble went on to lead almost all of the final race, but after the BMW of Jake Hill got by Taylor-Smith at two-thirds distance, Doble found himself having to defend hard for the final couple of laps.
Hill ultimately fought past into the lead on the final lap, but Doble nonetheless claimed second – a first-ever outright podium – and helped Power Maxed Racing to secure its first-ever double podium in the championship.
“I’m ecstatic – I think that I did everything I could and drove nigh on a perfect race,” Doble told TouringCars.Net. “Árón helped me for a lot of the race keeping the raging pack behind him, which obviously prevented them from catching me.
“I made the break early on and had really good pace in the car – that’s probably the best that Astra has ever felt for me. Everything that we asked for just came together in that race, and we just had great pace.
“With it being so hot, the rear-wheel drive of Jake Hill, who obviously is a fantastic driver in a great car, was just a little bit too much for us to hang on to at the end without putting ourselves at risk of a crash or something worse.
“I couldn’t have asked for much more and a double podium for the team going into the mid-season break is just what the doctor ordered.”
Doble appreciated the way his battle with Hill went, and said that the championship leader had congratulated him on his performance after the race.
“Jake came up to me after and applauded me on the way I drove, which was a special moment to have someone of his calibre appreciate a drive like that so early in my career.
“It was an exciting last lap and I’m sure it was the race that everyone hung around for at the end of the day, and I was just pleased to be a part of it.”