Harry Hickton Produces Battling Display At Oulton Park

Harry Hickton found himself in the thick of the action at Oulton Park this past weekend (21-22 June) as the Mannpower Motorsport driver wrote the latest chapter of the 2025 Vertu MINI CHALLENGE JCW season.

Having never competed at the Cheshire track before, Hickton could have been forgiven for slowly building into the weekend during Friday’s practice sessions but instead the 18-year-old wasted no time in punching in a string of top-five times.

Come qualifying on Saturday morning, last year’s MINI CHALLENGE Trophy title winner delivered a strong performance in his front-wheel-drive machine to secure ninth on the grid for race one later that afternoon.

Hickton - who is backed Maber Construction, Hysons Chartered Accountants, The Platform Lift Company, Vernham Labels, Woodstock Plumbing and Heating Supplies, MDH Roofing & Son, Vertex VT Consultants, GSF Car Parts and DPH Services - would sadly endure a race to forget.

Despite making a strong start, the Hampshire racer sustained damage to the rear of his car that required him to make a visit to the pit lane, which in-turn dropped him down the order and out of the main points-paying positions.

More misfortune was to follow for Hickton in race two the following day as he was hit with a ten-second time penalty for an adjudged false start.

The talented teenager had been comfortably running inside the top ten throughout the contest but the penalty would ultimately put him back to 11th by the time he took the chequered flag.

Harry Hickton: “It’s been another character-building weekend where we head home with a lot less than our pace warranted - and that’s frustrating as everyone in the team has been working tirelessly.

“We demonstrated that we had good pace in practice on Friday but the ever-changing conditions made things difficult over the course of the weekend and we never quite hooked everything together. I feel like I’m moving in the right direction though.

“We’ve got a pretty long summer break now so I’ll go away, evaluate everything and together with the team we can see if we can extract more from both me and the car. Then we will look to come out the blocks flying for the second half of the season.”

The 2025 Vertu MINI CHALLENGE JCW season continues at Croft on the 2-3 August.