Brands Hatch BTCC: Collard wins season opener as Priaulx fades

A renowned fast starter, Collard made another lightning getaway to vault from fifth to second on the opening lap and passed poleman and team-mate Andy Priaulx just after the halfway mark.

Priaulx's BTCC return started in dream-like fashion in qualifying, and he led early, but struggled on the soft tyres and lost out to Collard on the run out of Clearways, which opened the door to Smith and Plato at Paddock.

The two Volkswagen CCs proceeded to hound Collard relentlessly but could not get close enough to make a pass and allowed Collard, whose son Ricky won the second MSA Formula race of the weekend earlier on Sunday, to take his ninth win in the BTCC.

"The opening couple of laps were really important," said Collard, "until my tyres were in the right window.

"Andy made a small mistake at Clearways. I thought the VWs would drop off a little bit. Once I was in front I just had to bang out qualifying laps."

Behind the two BMR cars, Jack Goff put in a strong drive on his MG debut, managing his own deteriorating soft tyres and successfully defending fourth from 2014 champion Colin Turkington.

New BMR recruit Turkington had his own work to do to maintain fifth as Gordon Shedden closed right in towards the end, although the Scot had to settle for sixth in the maiden race for Honda's new Civic Type-R.

Andrew Jordan, in the second MG, and Shedden's team-mate Matt Neal had quiet races but both passed Priaulx late on to claim seventh and eighth, just ahead of the three-time world champion.

Completing the top 10 was Speedworks Motorsport's Tom Ingram after hitting Ciceley Racing's Adam Morgan at Graham Hill Bend, an apparent retaliation to the Mercedes nerfing Ingram's Toyota Avensis out of the way at Druids.

Derek Palmer Jr's Infiniti was the only non-finisher, completing just 14 laps on the Support our Paras Racing team's debut, while Andy Wilmot's Proton failed to make the start.

RACE 1 RESULTS - 24 LAPS: