BTCC Thruxton: Adam Morgan takes commanding race three win

The Ciceley Racing driver won at the Brands Hatch finale last season but only after a post-race penalty for Jason Plato, and if that was a fortunate maiden triumph there was no doubting the Mercedes driver fully deserved this success.

From pole position Morgan opened up an early lead over MG's Andrew Jordan, holding a two-second advantage after just four laps.

He extended that by a further second as Jordan held WSR's Sam Tordoff at bay, but a safety car caused by Warren Scott crashing his Team BMR Volkswagen CC eradicated the gap.

When the safety car returned to the pits with seven laps to go, Jordan's challenge failed to materialise - leaving Morgan to ease clear to a 1.4-second winning margin.

A second podium for MG was just reward for Jordan, who was untroubled by the BMW of Tordoff behind in the final few laps.

That was partly due to the WSR man's attention being taken by Colin Turkington, who ran fourth throughout in his BMR VW and made a late but unsuccessful attempt to grab third.

The Hondas of championship leader Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal finished a second apart in fifth and sixth, a remarkable result given Neal started the race 25th following his retirement in race two.

Neal made strong progress in the first half of the race and was up to 11th by the time the safety car was scrambled.

After that he worked with Aron Smith to clear Rob Collard and Josh Cook (who Neal hit at the chicane) before taking seventh when Jack Goff ran wide through Church, and sixth from race-two winner Plato at the same corner on the penultimate lap.

Plato came home seventh ahead of Smith, with Cook and Tom Ingram completing the top 10.

RACE THREE RESULT

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS: