BTCC Rockingham: Morgan dominates first race in tricky conditions
Adam Morgan won Sunday's opening British Touring Car Championship race at Rockingham with a dominant performance in tricky conditions
The Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes A-Class racer stormed from pole position into the lead at the opening corner, assisted by contact behind between Dan Cammish (Team Dynamics Honda Civic) and front row starter Sam Tordoff (Motorbase Performance Ford Focus).
Tordoff spun, while other cars - including that of Cammish's team-mate and championship hopeful Matt Neal - piled in to the stationary Focus.
The skirmish allowed Tom Chilton (Motobase Ford Focus) into second place, while Cammish ran third ahead of the fast-starting Team BMR Subaru Levorg of Ash Sutton, who was up from the fifth row of the grid.
After a brief safety car period to clear up the broken cars, Morgan again raced clear as Chilton began to struggle with degrading front tyres.
Morgan, whose victory was his third of the season, said: "I knew it would be all about the start and I wanted to reach the opening hairpin first. It was a relief when I saw it all kicking off behind me.
"After that, I was able to manage the pace, although there was a shower in the early stages which meant I was having to be careful on the brakes and I was searching for grip."
Chilton fell back late on into the clutches of Sutton, who pounced on his rival going through the Tarzan hairpin on lap 13 to secure runner-up spot.
Chilton was forced to defend for the remainder of the race as Cammish and Chris Smiley (BTC Norlin Honda Civic) swarmed all over him.
"That was not a nice race," said Chilton. "When your tyres are overcooked and there was rain coming down too, I was a sitting duck.
"It was my job to make it as tough as possible for those behind me, and I needed to work hard to keep the podium finish: it was the best I could manage."
Smiley had got ahead of Cammish briefly, but a touch between the pair gifted fourth back to the Team Dynamics man. However, a superior exit from the final corner gave Smiley a run to leap into fourth by a narrow margin at the flag.
Mike Bushell took sixth in his Team Hard VW CC ahead of Colin Turkington in the WSR BMW 125i M Sport, which was carrying 66kg of success ballast.
The Northern Irishman moved back to the head of the points standings after his main rival Tom Ingram, who had been running seventh in the Speedworls Motorsport Toyota Avensis, pulled off the track on the final lap with a fly-by-wire throttle system failure.
Result - 18 laps
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Adam Morgan | Ciceley Motorsport | Mercedes | 27m06.372s |
2 | Ash Sutton | Team BMR | Subaru | 3.017s |
3 | Tom Chilton | Motorbase | Ford | 7.031s |
4 | Chris Smiley | BTC Norlin | Honda | 7.293s |
5 | Dan Cammish | Team Dynamics | Honda | 7.352s |
6 | Mike Bushell | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 8.830s |
7 | Colin Turkington | WSR | BMW | 9.459s |
8 | Aiden Moffat | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes | 11.934s |
9 | Rory Butcher | AmD Tuning | MG | 13.547s |
10 | Matt Simpson | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 14.306s |
11 | Rob Austin | HMS Racing | Alfa Romeo | 16.028s |
12 | Senna Proctor | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | 16.305s |
13 | Jack Goff | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 16.784s |
14 | Stephen Jelley | Team Parker Racing | BMW | 22.370s |
15 | Andrew Jordan | WSR | BMW | 23.539s |
16 | Ollie Jackson | AmD Tuning | Audi | 27.063s |
17 | Ricky Collard | WSR | BMW | 27.339s |
18 | Matt Neal | Team Dynamics | Honda | 29.702s |
19 | James Cole | Motorbase | Ford | 30.304s |
20 | Michael Caine | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 30.727s |
21 | Daniel Lloyd | BTC Norlin | Honda | 31.490s |
22 | Glynn Geddie | AmD Tuning | MG | 39.491s |
23 | Jason Plato | Team BMR | Subaru | 40.062s |
24 | Bobby Thompson | Team Hard | Volkswagen | 1 Lap |
25 | Tom Oliphant | Ciceley Motorsport | Mercedes | 1 Lap |
26 | Brett Smith | Eurotech Racing | Honda | 2 Laps |
- | Tom Ingram | Speedworks | Toyota | Retirement |
- | Josh Cook | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall | Retirement |
- | Sam Tordoff | Motorbase | Ford | Retirement |
- | Ollie Pidgley | Team Hard | Volkswagen | Retirement |
- | Sam Smelt | AmD Tuning | Audi | Retirement |
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