Zelos bolsters his season lead at Oulton Park

Images: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Defending champion Dan Zelos continued into the weekend at Oulton Park seeking to up his points before the midseason break with hopes to continue his previous week’s successes. However, Dan Zelos encountered fierce competition from the other racers throughout the weekend. 

With an initial boost from the free practice, things looked great for Zelos, who managed to achieve an extra half a second distance over the rest of his competition and hoped to translate this forward into the race weekend. Unfortunately, during qualifying,  Zelos struggled with grip throughout, placing him at an initial disadvantage going into the races, qualifying fourth on the grid for race one and seventh for race two. This would be Zelos’ first time starting behind the front of the grid since 2022. 

Race one started with a challenge for  Zelos, who was pushed down to seventh place after getting boxed in at the start. Despite this setback, he managed to climb back up to fifth by taking advantage of a battle between his two teammates, and not long after this, he also set the new fastest lap time, which went unbeaten for the weekend.

Zelos finished the first race with an overtake of rival Maximus Hall on lap 11, securing fourth position, but with the top three drivers having already built up a significant lead, he was content with earning a 6-point bonus for the fastest lap.

During race two, Zelos initially conceded a position to Lewis Selby during the opening before swiftly regaining it during the third lap. Zelos remained competitive though and took advantage of an incident ahead when a driver crashed out of third. This allowed Dan to move up the ranks slowly, and during lap 11, he snatched fifth place from Dominic Wheatley, ultimately securing the fifth-place finish and bolstering his lead this season. 

Jakob Ebrey Photography

Dan said on the weekend: “I love Oulton Park, and it was a decent weekend overall,” Zelos reflected. “We maybe didn’t experience the same highs as we have elsewhere this season, but we did the job we needed to do. 

“We got up-to-speed fairly quickly in practice, so I was feeling confident, but we didn’t have as many new tyres available as usual and because we wanted to keep the best ones for the races, we really struggled for rear-end grip in qualifying. We couldn’t settle the back of the car down enough or carry the speed through the fast corners as we had done in practice – and there are quite a few fast corners at Oulton! 

“Still, we brought the Davanti MINI home in one piece with no damage and while the results didn’t set the world alight, points mean future prizes. At the end of the day, titles are won by making the best of your bad weekends – and if you had offered me an increased championship lead after qualifying, I would have bitten your hand off!”

Stay up to date with Dan’s progress on Davanti Tyre’s social channels for updates on the 2024 season, or learn more about Davanti and check out our product range.