Rockingham BTCC: Gordon Shedden dominates opener for Honda
Gordon Shedden dominated the opening British Touring Car Championship race of the weekend at Rockingham to kick-start his charge for this season's title
The 2015 winner powered his Honda Civic away from pole position in a lead he wasn't to lose, despite pressure over the opening couple of corners from Mat Jackson's Ford.
"Jackson was very close to me, particularly at the hairpin at Turn 2, but I managed to fend him off," said Shedden.
"Then, I think he had to look in his mirrors and start defending, which was the break I needed."
Even a mid-race safety car didn't put the Scot off his stride. The three-time 2016 race winner added: "At the restart, no one was bunched up behind me and the safety car had gone, so I just put my foot down and managed to stretch away.
"This is just the momentum we needed."
Jackson was forced into defensive mode as he had Jason Plato and Colin Turkington's Subarus in his wheeltracks, but the Motorbase Ford driver hung on gamely to the spot until the end.
"That was hard work," said Jackson. "Jason could get into a position to have a couple of looks, and I just had to be careful where I placed the car."
Plato finished third from Turkington. They had both zoomed ahead of the Triple Eight MG of Josh Cook away from the line to squabble over third place.
Cook finished fifth ahead of his team-mate Ashley Sutton while Jackson's Motorbase team-mate Andrew Jordan climbed through the field to seventh.
Matt Neal brought his Honda Civic home in eighth from Dave Newsham's Chevrolet, while points leader Sam Tordoff limited the damage after a poor qualifying left him 27th. He recovered to 10th.
Tordoff's WSR BMW team-mate Rob Collard also powered up the pack from 26th on the grid to claim 14th spot.
RESULTS - 18 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 26m36.324s |
2 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 2.561s |
3 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 2.869s |
4 | Colin Turkington | Team BMR | Subaru | 3.165s |
5 | Josh Cook | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 8.741s |
6 | Ash Sutton | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 12.144s |
7 | Andrew Jordan | Motorbase Performance | Ford | 14.072s |
8 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 18.244s |
9 | Dave Newsham | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 23.899s |
10 | Sam Tordoff | WSR | BMW | 24.168s |
11 | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | 25.086s |
12 | Jack Goff | WSR | BMW | 26.423s |
13 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 28.526s |
14 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 28.994s |
15 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Team BKR | Volkswagen | 29.625s |
16 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 31.391s |
17 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 33.533s |
18 | Michael Epps | Team Hard | Toyota | 39.864s |
19 | Warren Scott | Team BMR | Subaru | 40.123s |
20 | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | 42.436s |
21 | Stewart Lines | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 43.295s |
22 | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | 43.626s |
23 | Alex Martin | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 46.925s |
24 | Tony Gilham | Team Hard | Toyota | 50.092s |
25 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 2 Laps |
26 | Hunter Abbott | Power Maxed Racing | Chevrolet | 2 Laps |
- | Daniel Welch | Welch Motorsport | Proton | Retirement |
- | Matt Simpson | Speedworks Motorsport | Honda | Retirement |
- | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Toyota | Retirement |
- | Martin Depper | Eurotech Racing | Honda | Retirement |
- | Mark Howard | Team BKR | Volkswagen | Retirement |
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