BTCC Brands Hatch: Champion Shedden claims race two win in Civic
Reigning champion Gordon Shedden took his first win of the British Touring Car Championship season in the second race Brands Hatch
The race started in a drawn out fashion when polesitter Tom Ingram's Toyota Avensis failed to get away from the start line for the warm up lap, but he performed a quick electrical reset and got going in time to climb back through the pack for pole.
Ingram's car subsequently failed again and prompted an aborted start, and although he again took up pole after another warm up lap, he was hit with a drive-through penalty to be served later in the race for causing the start delay.
However, a heavy start line crash for Jason Plato (Team BMR Subaru Levorg) meant the race was red flagged.
Plato was uninured, but his car was badly damaged.
The grid was reissued by officials and Ingram's penalty was erased, with the Speedworks driver maintaining the lead after the second attempt at a start.
But Ingram soon began to struggle with full ballast aboard his Toyota Avensis, and Team Dynamics Honda Civic driver Shedden snatched the lead of the race at the end of lap two before braking clear to win, despite a mid-race safety car.
"The car was even better than it had been in the first race, when we had no weight on, which was bizarre," said Shedden.
"I am delighted though. I could see I was being caught at the end, but we had enough in hand to land the win."
Ingram's lost a further place late on, ceding second place to the flying WSR BMW 125i M Sport of Rob Collard with four laps to go.
Andrew Jordan, running soft tyres on his WSR BMW, was on course for fourth until late contact between himself and the Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis of Rob Austin.
Austin powered ahead to instead take fourth at the line, although he was later excluded for that move - with Adam Morgan (Ciceley Motosport Mercedes-Benz A-Class) inheriting fourth.
Jordan fended off the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus of Mat Jackson on the run to the line, while Austin's exclusion promoted Josh Cook (Maximum Motorsport Ford Focus) to seventh and the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Tom Chilton into eighth.
That handed the BTCC returnee pole for the third race, which is due to start at 5:12pm UK time.
RESULT - 23 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Gordon Shedden | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 20m46.471s |
2 | Rob Collard | WSR | BMW | 0.870s |
3 | Tom Ingram | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota | 2.657s |
4 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Racing | Mercedes | 4.565s |
5 | Mat Jackson | Motorbase | Ford | 5.125s |
6 | Andrew Jordan | WSR | BMW | 5.140s |
7 | Josh Cook | Maximum Motorsport | Ford | 8.013s |
8 | Tom Chilton | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | 8.197s |
9 | Colin Turkington | WSR | BMW | 9.441s |
10 | Michael Epps | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 9.492s |
11 | Matt Neal | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 9.672s |
12 | Jack Goff | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 10.280s |
13 | Senna Proctor | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | 10.488s |
14 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 11.265s |
15 | Aron Taylor-Smith | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 12.741s |
16 | Jeff Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 13.002s |
17 | Dave Newsham | BTC Racing | Chevrolet | 14.025s |
18 | Stephen Jelley | Team Parker Racing | Ford | 14.916s |
19 | Jake Hill | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 17.857s |
20 | Matt Simpson | Dynamics/Honda | Honda | 18.084s |
21 | James Cole | Team BMR | Subaru | 18.450s |
22 | Will Burns | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 20.479s |
23 | Daniel Lloyd | Triple Eight/MG | MG | 1 Lap |
24 | Josh Price | Team BMR | Subaru | 3 Laps |
- | Rob Austin | Handy Motorsport | Toyota | Disqualified |
- | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | Retirement |
- | Ash Sutton | Team BMR | Subaru | Retirement |
- | Chris Smiley | BTC Racing | Chevrolet | Retirement |
- | Luke Davenport | Motorbase | Ford | Retirement |
- | Ant Whorton-Eales | AmD Tuning | Audi | Retirement |
- | Martin Depper | Motorbase | Ford | Retirement |
- | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | Retirement |
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