2013’s only away round was held at Oulton Park this weekend, with the leafy roller coaster Cheshire circuit bathed in sunshine and a packed 25 car grid.
Qualifying was disappointing with Malcolm only managing 9th place. After struggling to settle in to the circuit, the session was halted on the 4th lap just as he was finding his groove and was 4 tenths up on his previous best.
Race 1 was frenetic. After a first corner shambles with the lead cars Malcolm threaded his way through the carnage up to 6th but got pushed back down to 8th after cascades and the run up to island bend. After surviving an off through island at close to 100mph he was back in 9th with a lot of work to do and fought hard to get back up the field finishing 5th and getting the draw for the reverse grid pole.
Off pole he had one of his worst starts this year finding himself wheel to wheel with Kenny Thirlwall in to the first corner. Both kept it clean and without any contact, continued the race down to cascades. Ducking in behind Kenny for the first lap Malcolm was set to challenge but got forced wide by a late lunge in to Lodge that saw him taking avoiding action on the grass and briefly being airborne bouncing back on to the track in 5th. After seeing off some pressure from the team boss, David Sleigh, he made it back up to 4th despite some handling issues after his offroad excursions.
Not the best weekend of results but at the same time, 2 points finishes in the top 5 when both races could have ended in complete disaster!