Drivers James Townsend and Joe Wheeler finished second in the GT4 Pro-Am category in the second of two races at the Cheshire venue to finish on the rostrum and mark their rivals’ cards for the remainder of the season.
Such a finish looked extremely unlikely earlier in the weekend. A ‘critical performance issue’ that had afflicted the team’s Aston Martin Vantage GT4 at the previous event at Silverstone and during Friday testing was traced to a fault in the car’s differential.
A replacement item was delayed in arriving at Oulton Park, meaning that crew members from the team from Maldon, Essex, were still fitting it during Saturday morning practice. The result was a full session missed and crucial track time given away to their rivals.
The disadvantage of this was not on show in qualifying as James – back with Fox Motorsport in 2026 after a three-year-absence – qualified a superb third in Pro-Am for the opening race; Joe following that up with sixth for Race Two.
A racy James made a super start to Monday’s opener, instantly taking the category lead and holding it for the opening portion of his stint. Frustratingly a left-rear puncture, sustained just as the pit window opened, dropped the car to sixth by the finish.
The duo more than made up for that disappointment in Race Two, however. Joe was fully entrenched in a five-car battle for second place throughout the opening stint, a train of GT4 cars separated by less than three seconds for the duration.
A lightning-fast driver change helped James rejoin the circuit second in class once he had climbed aboard, but a stop-go penalty – incurred for the pitstop being less than one second under the minimum 100-second time limit – dropped him back to fifth.
Undeterred, James instantly relcaimed fourth and closed back on the podium contenders. He made his move inside the final five minutes, decisively slicing past two rivals on consecutive laps through Oulton Park’s tight chicanes.
It was the first podium finish for the Townsend Racing powered by Fox Motorsport partnership and the first for Fox since returning to British GT at the start of the season after a three-year absence.
James and Joe hold fourth place in the GT4 Pro-Am standings with two rounds completed. The next event is at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium on June 20-21.
James Townsend said: “I’m so relieved to get our first podium. It was our aim to do it within the first two weekends, so we’ve done that. It was really good to show what we can do when things run smoothly. After diagnosing the diff issue and working through that, and a few little mistakes in Race One, this result is brilliant. The stop-go penalty was unfortunate, but once I closed up behind the couple of cars I was chasing, I made a couple of nice moves and built a little gap before the finish. We all deserve this and I think this will propel us onto even more at Spa.”
Joe Wheeler said: “I’m so pleased with this result. The team have done so much work on this project and today it’s really paid off. We had a fundamental issue with the car from our first test and only diagnosed it on Friday, and the difference is night and day. I feel like now we can unlock the full potential of the Aston Martin. Because we missed practice while changing the diff, we didn’t have a chance to dial the car in for qualifying, but the race pace was really strong so we head to Spa with much higher ambitions than we came here with.”
Paul McNeilly, Team Principal, said: “Sometimes you get a result that really feels like a reward for the team and here at Oulton we definitely had one of those. Tracing the issue with the car to the diff was key and the difference in what James and Joe were able to do afterwards was very clear. James made a great start in Race One and it was great to see him lead and to pull off some excellent overtaking moves late in Race Two when there was a lot on the line. Joe’s race pace was very strong too and I think at Spa we have everything we need to be right at the sharp end from the get-go.”
