The 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is now into its summer break, and Oulton Park marked another encouraging step forward for Restart Racing, which continued a recent upturn in form by recording Chris Smiley’s highest-scoring weekend of the season so far.

Having secured a season-best fourth-place finish at Snetterton, Smiley arrived in Cheshire looking to build on that momentum and did exactly that with a trio of points-scoring finishes across the weekend. Teammate James Dorlin, meanwhile, endured a more challenging event but still emerged from the fourth meeting of the campaign with further championship points despite a series of setbacks.

Both Restart Racing drivers showed promising pace from the outset at Oulton Park, with Smiley ending the weekend's sole practice session third fastest and Dorlin sixth. Qualifying proved frustrating for the duo as track limits infringements denied both drivers stronger starting positions.

Smiley lined up tenth for the opening contest and converted that into a points finish, taking ninth place after running inside the top ten throughout. Dorlin adopted an alternative tyre strategy and brought his car home 17th after a largely uneventful race.

Race two produced contrasting fortunes. While Smiley again demonstrated competitive pace, he was unable to convert it into points amid a closely-packed midfield battle and finished 12th. Despite the result, he remained one of the standout performers on outright speed, recording the fastest lap among the Independent runners and the third-fastest lap overall.

Dorlin enjoyed a more productive outing in the second encounter, making progress through the order to finish 14th and narrowly miss out on a place inside the points-paying positions.

The final race of the day then presented Smiley with his best opportunity of the weekend after the reverse-grid draw and subsequent penalties elsewhere elevated him onto pole position. Starting on the hard tyre compound against a number of rivals on softer rubber, the Northern Irishman led away from the line and remained firmly in contention throughout.

Although eventually shuffled back by those benefitting from the tyre advantage, Smiley remained the leading hard-tyre runner for much of the race and crossed the line in seventh place, securing his third points finish of the day and completing his most productive weekend of the season to date.

Dorlin's race three challenge became significantly more difficult before the lights had even gone out when a power steering issue forced him into the pits at the end of the formation lap. Despite the problem, he rejoined and battled through a physically demanding race to recover to 14th position, claiming valuable points after what had threatened to be a premature end to his weekend.

As the championship heads towards its return at Thruxton (25/26 July), Smiley's performances at Snetterton and Oulton Park suggest more is on the way after a difficult opening phase of the campaign.

Chris Smiley, #22 Restart Racing, said: “Oulton Park is over and out for another year. It was one of those weekends where I had to fight really hard for my positions.

“In race one we finished 9th. I was happy enough with that, although the car was struggling a little bit with the balance. In race two, the car felt much better, but unfortunately, we were just pinballed around and finished P12, which probably worked out well in the end because we ended up on pole for race three after number 11 was pulled out of the hat, and we moved up a place due to Árón [Taylor-Smith] getting a penalty.

“It was always going to be really hard on the hard tyre, but I couldn’t have done any more. I got a great start and managed to keep the BMW behind me, but on the safety car restart, with all the cars behind me on the soft tyre, there wasn’t really a huge amount of point in having a massive race with them.

“It was about driving my own race and bringing it home. To finish seventh, I’m happy enough with that. Obviously, we had bigger targets for that weekend, with an overall podium or maybe even better than that, but now it is a bit of a reset and there is plenty to work on.”

James Dorlin, #132 Restart Racing, said: “Oulton Park is all done and it had been tough, really tough. In the last race, we had no power steering from the outset. We tried to fix it when I came into the pits just before the start of the race, but unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get it sorted.

“I had to fight and try to do the whole race with no power steering, which in these cars, with so much power going through the front wheels on slick tyres, is super tough. But I wasn’t going to give up. We just had to try and climb as far up as we could, or at least hang on to it and claw some points back.

“Fortunately, a couple of guys had an off and I managed to overtake a couple as well, so we salvaged some points and limited the damage as much as we could.

“We just need to reset. Hopefully that is all our bad luck over and done with, although I feel like I have said that after every race so far this year. It has been a tough start and there is a lot of potential, so hopefully in the second half of the season we can get some good results.”