McMillan and Leason to miss Oulton Park rounds

Thu 28th May 2009 Maxtreme’s Liam McMillan and Team AFM’s Nick Leason will both be absent from rounds 10, 11 and 12 of the 2009 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park this weekend.

19-year-old McMillan and his family-run team have become the unfortunate victims of a dispute between engine builders Oreca and the team that previously owned his SEAT Toledo, BTC Racing.

McMillan said: “I’m bitterly disappointed to be missing Oulton Park. We sent our engines away in good time and in good faith to be rebuilt by ORECA, but they haven’t been returned.

“It hasn’t anything to do with myself or the Maxtreme team, but there appears to be an outstanding issue between ORECA and BTC Racing, the team who raced the Toledos last year and who we bought the cars off.”

Meanwhile, Nick Leason has opted to sit out the Oulton Park rounds in his diesel-powered BMW 1 Series, after taking a heavy hit in the pocket at Donington last time out.

Leason said, “I hope people understand we are only a very small team with an extremely small budget so we are always working so hard in need of more funding to progress further. With what happened to us at Donington, this unfortunately has now put us back a few weeks.

“With the need to re-group and pick ourselves up, taking a step back to assess what else needs improving. We are being sensible, even though it has been a very hard decision to take. With a bit of luck we can move forward showing further progress and start racing again. Missing one, or maybe two, races if required. The whole team is looking to achieve competitive results with this car, working with limited resources.”

In addition, Jason Hughes’ Team KWR MG ZS will once fail to make the grid this weekend, with the Lancashire driver citing ‘prior working commitments’.