Hill over hilltop to take himself to the top

BTCC

A t 4.02pm last Saturday, British Touring Car Championship title contender Jake Hill snatched a little bit of glory away from underdog up-and-comer Mikey Doble, and this laid the foundations for him to do a total smash-and-grab on the very same poor little fella as he took the points lead at 5.50pm on Sunday.

For the first 90% of the opening 10-minute phase of qualifying at Oulton Park, Hill had been struggling. His West Surrey Racing-run, Laser Tools-liveried BMW 330e M Sport had looked OK in the early morning free practice session. Perhaps this lulled his corner of the garage into a false sense of security, because he just carried on his prep work in FP2 using carryover medium-compound Goodyear tyres rather than dialling himself and his car in on the soft rubber that was standard for the weekend.

As Hill went into his final lap of Q1, it looked as though his BMW – restricted to just three seconds per lap of the hybrid power boost, due to his second place in the championship – was going to miss the top-six cut to progress. Then Hill set a purple opening sector, this portion of the lap comprising the high-speed Old Hall and Cascades, where the hybrid has little effect. He couldn’t even match his own personal best times in the remaining two sectors, but that start to the lap had been enough. Just. Up to fifth he went, an infinitesimal 0.001 seconds clear of sixth-placed Josh Cook, and just 0.002s ahead of the unfortunate Doble, who had been forced into the drop zone at the last gasp, and by the narrowest of margins.

He may have only just squeezed into the 12-car Q2, but Hill went much better here and ended up seventh. This time he was the driver edged out at the chequered flag, when Dan Rowbottom finally got in a lap that wasn’t taken away for track limits escapades. But with the scarcity of hybrid at his disposal, that was fine by the diminutive Kentishman. “In FP2 we ran the medium tyre and we were doing 1m25.4s, and the chassis felt fantastic,” Hill reflected when the dust had settled. “We thought we could make up the half-second to Ash [Sutton, pre-weekend championship leader] on a set of softs, and then hopefully we could find another half-second. That should get us in the top six. The car felt amazing to drive