Croft BTCC: Colin Turkington leads Jason Plato in Subaru one-two
Colin Turkington clinched his second win of the British Touring Car Championship season with a controlled drive to head a Subaru one-two in the Croft opener
Starting from pole in his BMR-run Levorg, Turkington survived an attack from fellow front-row starter Dan Lloyd when the lights went out to retain his position at the head of the pack and was untroubled en-route to his 11th win at the North Yorkshire circuit in the BTCC.
That win came despite the race being interrupted no fewer than three times for the deployment of the safety car, the first of which came at the start when Lloyd's bid to go around the outside of Turkington into Clervaux ended with his Eurotech Honda Civic Type-R buried in the gravel on the outside.
Lloyds's demise allowed Jason Plato to get into second and - like Turkington - he would have a trouble-free run to the flag as he kept his BMR team-mate in his sights and was able to pull comfortably clear of an increasingly heated battle for third.
Having retained his third place starting slot through the opening lap, Ashley Sutton produced a measured drive to secure his first BTCC podium finish despite the best efforts of Jack Goff to find a way ahead of the MG man.
With the BMW in his mirrors throughout, Sutton was able to defend for lap after lap, and even when the race came down to a two-lap shootout at the end after the final safety car period, Goff couldn't find a way through and was forced to settle for fourth.
Andrew Jordan's Motorbase Ford Focus was a somewhat lonely fifth with Jake Hill building on an impressive performance during Saturday's qualifying session as he clinched his best result to date in sixth in Team HARD's Toyota.
Following his clash with Matt Neal in qualifying, Rob Collard battled his way through from 13th on the grid to take seventh as the best of the drivers running on the hard compound Dunlop tyre, with Mat Jackson, Tom Ingram and Aron Smith rounding out the top 10.
Points leader Sam Tordoff endured a difficult start to race day.
A trip through the gravel at Clervaux on lap one damaged the underside of his BMW and resulted in a loss of oil that caused him to slip down to 13th spot, one place behind Neal who now moves level on points at the head of the standings.
Neal's fellow Honda driver Gordon Shedden could manage only 15th.
Aside from Lloyd, Hunter Abbott's bid to build on his strong qualifying performance was ended on lap one when his was slow away from the line and then retired after contact with Adam Morgan at Hawthorn, with Morgan himself also retiring later on after picking up damaged suspension in a skirmish at the hairpin.
RESULTS - 18 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Colin Turkington | Team BMR | Subaru | 29m56.374s |
2 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 1.353s |
3 | Ash Sutton | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 2.305s |
4 | Jack Goff | WSR | BMW | 2.689s |
5 | Andrew Jordan | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 6.429s |
6 | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Toyota | 7.136s |
7 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 7.306s |
8 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 8.025s |
9 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 8.279s |
10 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 9.191s |
11 | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 9.343s |
12 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 10.208s |
13 | Sam Tordoff | WSR | BMW | 12.409s |
14 | Michael Epps | Team Hard | Toyota | 12.903s |
15 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 13.969s |
16 | Warren Scott | Team BMR | Subaru | 14.453s |
17 | Josh Cook | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 14.895s |
18 | Martin Depper | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 15.471s |
19 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 16.124s |
20 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 17.269s |
21 | Alex Martin | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 18.927s |
22 | Matt Simpson | Speedworks Motorsport | Honda | 19.299s |
23 | Stewart Lines | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 19.720s |
24 | Chris Smiley | Team Hard | Toyota | 20.407s |
- | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | Retirement |
- | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | Retirement |
- | Daniel Welch | Welch Motorsport | Proton | Retirement |
- | Kelvin Fletcher | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | Retirement |
- | Mark Howard | Team BKR | Volkswagen | Retirement |
- | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | Retirement |
- | Hunter Abbott | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | Retirement |
- | Daniel Lloyd | Eurotech Racing | Honda | Retirement |
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