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Croft BTCC: Colin Turkington cruises to race one victory

Colin Turkington won the first British Touring Car race at Croft after a dominant performance, while battles raged behind

Despite the mandated longer first gear in his WSR BMW, poleman Turkington held the lead at the start and simply drove away from the field.

The only man who kept him in sight was works Honda Civic Tourer driver Gordon Shedden, but even he fell away to take the flag 7.5 seconds behind the championship leader.

Rob Collard made a brilliant start from row three to briefly reach second on the run to Clervaux, but the BMW driver outbraked himself when he arrived and fell to fourth.

In the melee into Hawthorn, Andrew Jordan's Eurotech Civic hit Mat Neal's works Honda into a slide, and Adam Morgan's Ciceley Mercedes touched the Audi of Rob Austin into a spin.

Jason Plato's MG thus emerged in third with Collard and Jordan just behind. Neal soon recovered from eighth to sixth and made it a four-car train for third.

Both Triple Eight MGs were struggling and holding cars behind, but while Sam Tordoff fell down to an eventual ninth, having run as high as sixth, Plato remained firm in his defence.

Despite constant pressure from Collard - and the odd rub - Plato held on to complete the podium, albeit nearly 14 seconds down on Turkington after 14 laps.

Alain Menu had almost caught the Plato train as he finished seventh, while Mat Jackson starred as he charged from 15th to eighth, helped by a stellar first lap.

Hunter Abbott elected to run the soft Dunlop tyre and ended up 10th, failing to oust Tordoff in a late fight, while Dave Newsham took 11th in the first race of his AmD Focus with the revised front end.

Results - 14 laps:                                       
                                                         
Pos Driver               Team/Car              Time/Gap  
 1. Colin Turkington     WSR BMW             20m08.824s  
 2. Gordon Shedden       Honda                  +7.478s  
 3. Jason Plato          MG                    +13.890s  
 4. Rob Collard          WSR BMW               +14.153s  
 5. Andrew Jordan        Eurotech Honda        +14.692s  
 6. Matt Neal            Honda                 +15.054s  
 7. Alain Menu           BMR VW                +15.963s  
 8. Mat Jackson          Motorbase Ford        +19.173s  
 9. Sam Tordoff          MG                    +20.905s  
10. Hunter Abbott        RAR Audi              +21.361s  
11. Dave Newsham         AmD Ford              +22.038s  
12. Fabrizio Giovanardi  Motorbase Ford        +31.159s  
13. Rob Austin           RAR Audi              +33.990s  
14. Martin Depper        Eurotech Honda        +38.463s  
15. Tom Ingram           Speedworks Toyota     +38.504s  
16. Marc Hynes           MG                    +40.556s  
17. Jack Clarke          Motorbase Ford        +44.342s  
18. Lea Wood             Houseman Toyota       +46.239s  
19. Jack Goff            BMR Vauxhall          +46.567s  
20. Aiden Moffat         Moffat Chevrolet      +54.186s  
21. James Cole           UA Toyota           +1m00.014s  
22. Ollie Jackson        Welch Proton        +1m00.052s  
23. Aron Smith           BMR VW              +1m03.623s  
24. Dan Welch            Welch Proton        +1m04.310s  
25. Warren Scott         BMR Vauxhall        +1m04.924s  
26. Simon Belcher        Handy Toyota        +1m11.282s  
27. Glynn Geddie         UA Toyota               -1 lap  
28. Robb Holland         Rotek Audi             -2 laps  
                                                         
Retirements:                                             
                                                         
    Adam Morgan          Ciceley Mercedes        0 laps  
    Nick Foster          WSR BMW                 0 laps             

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