British GT Championship

Parklife 4 – Return to Oulton Park

Report by David Harbey

7 Aug 2020

The much anticipated return of top-line four-wheeled motorsport to the UK on the weekend of August 1^st / 2^nd was sadly thwarted when those in authority determined that the BTCC was an elite sport.

This was clearly bad news for many eager fans; fortunately the British GT Championship supported by F3 and Ginettas was permitted to go ahead at Oulton Park.

PistonClick’s guide to shooting at Oulton Park is available here - Oulton Park Photographic Guide - it’s a wonderful parkland circuit with a plenty of trees and grass and, with care, can produce photos without too much gravel, fence or even red wheelie bins in the background !

The programme started at 12 noon with the GT warm up and then ran straight through to the 6pm curfew. A leisurely drive from Milton Keynes included a wrong slot in Nantwich for the second weekend running. Why ? 

No idea, I know the route and have a good sat nav !  Nevertheless, Andrew and I arrived in good time to walk from the parking inside the circuit to the outside of Cascades (D)

As we got close to Cascades, the carefully planned packing of various lenses, lunch, clothing, etc, revealed a potentially important omission – the monopod. I tend not to use the 200-500mm zoom handheld as I have not been on the body building course yet – but Andrew was happy to try it.

Whilst I planned some “big GT car in the frame” shots later in the day, this rather forced my hand to get more of the surrounding scenery in my photos using the 70-200mm zoom. As it happens, Oulton Park is not bad on that score especially with some dramatic clouds.

The reason for heading to the outside of Cascades was to get the cars diving into the fast left hand corner with a colourful and blurry background of cars and people.

Despite initial impressions of lots of cars, people seemed to be in reasonably small groups and distancing in accordance with official guidelines.

Soon enough, it was the much anticipated first race of the British GT season. There is little better in my view than a field of noisy GT cars at speed. Rumbling AMG Mercedes, the bass note of the Bentley, a howling Lamborghini or Ferrari to name but a few.

Still at D on the map and starting as close as possible to the apex of Cascades right in the corner of the fenced spectator area gives some great shots. There is also the panned shot as they head up to Island Bend.

Then it was time to explore. Walking away from the track, there are shots through the trees. Andrew previously featured in the shot of the green Ferrari as he was still stood nearer the track. A little work in Polarr did the trick – sorry, Andrew !

I tried some manual pre-focusing and I want to go back and explore the shots through the trees further when I go to the Gold Cup meeting at the end of the August. 

I was also keen to get some shots further back up The Avenue (C on the map) or Dentons as it seems to be called these days. Again you have a good background to work with.

The final shot of the first GT race is the rear shot as the cars dive into Cascades. I especially like the colourful row of umbrellas in front of the Knickerbrook grandstand. A reference to The Tent People of Knickerbrook on the Oulton Park Facebook group was swiftly corrected – they are The Knickerbrook Hardcore apparently !

More mysteriously, one of their number claimed - They are like the Ravens at the Tower of London ..... The day the umbrella dwellers leave Oulton Park the course will disappear into a black hole ....

On previous visits we had noted that at Deer Leap (P on the map), new fencing had been installed which restricted the view of the cars there – there’s an iconic Oulton Park shot with the red stone lodge in the background. If you position yourself just right on the bank, there is a fence-free shot with the big zoom.

However, shots often feature the emergency vehicle parked there. The two shots below show uncropped and cropped versions of the same image.

It’s also possible to move around to get a more pleasing background. Other snappers report that shooting through the fence gives good results; another one to try at the Gold Cup.

For the rest of the day, we headed across to the bridge at Clay Hill to access the outside of the circuit at Knickerbrook and Hislops (H on the map).

The F3 race was in progress and I grabbed a shot of the leader heading up under the footbridge. Then there’s another photo of the Tent People and cars exiting the Hislops complex.

The Ginettas were back out before the second British GT race of the day. Close competition is guaranteed as evidenced by the following shots – I’m not sure I, or they, could repeat the perfect line up !

Shame we needed the large black marker to stop too much abuse of the kerbs … still, gave them something to aim at, I suppose

There’s normally a row of snappers in this area but you can usually find a spot. It’s a good idea to try different points to get a good background and avoid too much fence, the marshals, etc.

Nothing against marshals without whom we could not enjoy our sport and to whom we are eternally grateful – it’s just that the orange is, well, very orange !

There’s a reverse angle of the cars heading up to Clay Hill – choose your focus point, colourway …

We’ve got loads of big car in the frame shots which are full of impact, but it’s good to look at different angles in this area. The long shot back to Hilltop or the cars coming through Hislops – doesn’t that Toyota, on its debut, look as if it is running gravel rally specification suspension ?

Didn’t seem to harm its progress as it qualified 2^nd for race 1. Or even, oh my goodness, turn the camera through 90 degrees to portrait mode – well, it will seem familiar to the camera phone generation – grrr, pet-hate - videos shot in portrait !!

Race two sort of petered out as multiple incidents caused an extended safety car which ran up to the end of the race. It was one of those unusual cases where there were four cars requiring recovery all at the same time and something had to give. One of the cars was the Toyota which had taken to the escape road a couple of times already before it came to a halt in front of me at Clay Hill.

Of course, these days, the driver can’t ride back to the paddock in the recovery vehicle – so it was a walk home for James Kells …

Oulton Park remains an excellent circuit to visit and photograph. We didn’t even venture to Druids, Brittens or the inside of Lodge but there was still plenty of potential. Old hands bemoan the increasing amount of fencing, but there are still many areas with good backgrounds that aren’t too badly afflicted, although a longish zoom is advantageous. It was definitely good to take a more “zoomed-out” approach to my images on this occasion.

Thanks to Andrew for his photos for this report - fuller galleries of British GT, F3 and GInettas can be found on Flickr.

British GT - British GT Championship

Results – TSL Timing

Oulton Park - Oulton Park