Butcher: Hindsight is a beautiful thing!

AmD's Rory Butcher admits his disappointment in losing the opportunity to score another British Touring Car Championship race victory after falling off the circuit late on in race three at Oulton Park.

The Honda Civic Type R driver bounced back from a near disastrous Croft meeting last time out with three top-seven finishes during the fifth meeting of 2019, but missed the chance of securing his second win of the season in race three.

Butcher overturned a plus five-second deficit to him and race leader Jake Hill during the reverse grid encounter but ran wide onto the grass at the Island hairpin after running over fluid that was dropped onto the circuit during the first lap drama.

Unbeknown to Butcher at the time, a second place finish for the Honda driver would have turned into the race win following Hill's 20-second post-race penalty for causing a collision with Matt Neal on lap three.

As such Butcher dropped down to sixth following his error but was later promoted back up to fifth due to Hill's time penalty.

"We’ve clawed back a couple of places in the championship again, back up to P4. Of course I’m disappointed with race three. I lost a podium spot but we were fast and that’s the main thing at the moment," Butcher told Crash.net.

"We’re still leading the Independents’ championship so we’re going into the second half of the year feeling good."

Butcher explained he was trying to run a wider line at the Island hairpin in order to put Hill further under attack with a better exit heading down to the next chicane.

"I just started to creep over. During the last two/three laps I moved over a little bit because I was trying to open up the exit to get Jake on the exit," Butcher continued.

"On that lap I must’ve been a bit further left than the previous lap then yeah, no grip!

"I’d been pushing, pushing, pushing the whole time. You’re just on the edge and the car was quite pointy. It was feeling really good. I guess if I was to look back on it I wish I’d maybe settled for second.

"But at the same time you’ve always got to fight for these wins when the opportunities come along. It would’ve been really nice to go into the second half of the year with a win or podium."

At the time of hunting Hill for the race lead, Butcher said he unaware that the Audi driver was under the threat of a stewards investigation.

"I didn’t know it was Jake’s incident to be honest. At that point I was unaware. It probably would’ve been a safer bet to settle. Hindsight is a beautiful thing!" Butcher concluded.