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BTCC Donington: Hill recovers to dominate final race

Jake Hill dominated the final race of the opening round of the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park to complete his recovery from a disastrous start to the day.

Watch: BTCC: Donington Race 3 in 60 seconds

Hill was excluded from third position in race one when his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport incurred damage as a result of which it failed the ride-height test, before racing from the rear of the grid to ninth in race two.

He was drawn on pole position for the reversed grid, and drove away from the field.

Dan Lloyd, who started his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N from the front row, ran second initially, before reigning champion Ash Sutton slipped past at the Old Hairpin on the third lap.

At this point Sutton’s Motorbase Performance Ford Focus was a second adrift of Hill, and the leader gradually extended the advantage to a maximum of 2.609 seconds with a lap remaining, before taking victory by 2.148s.

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“It’s a nice recovery,” said Hill. “It’s just rewarding for us – I forgot how many highs and lows there are in the BTCC.

“Once I got away that was that – it’s nice to have a car capable of doing that, and it was honestly so chilled.”

For his part, Sutton attempted to get the bonus point for fastest lap, but the pace of Hill was too much for him, even though the Ford was much improved from the opening two races.

Lloyd had a queue of cars behind him by half-distance, but clung on well in the Hyundai until the penultimate lap.

Jake Hill, ROKiT MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport

Jake Hill, ROKiT MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

That was when he made an error at Redgate, allowing Josh Cook’s BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R alongside – Lloyd moved over, but Cook kept his foot in and completed the move to make a great turnaround since his qualifying disaster.

Later that lap, first-race winner Tom Ingram got his Excelr8 Hyundai ahead of the Ciceley Motorsport BMW of Adam Morgan, whose hybrid has been out of use since the end of race one, at the chicane for fifth place.

Lloyd narrowly headed team-mate Ingram for fifth, with Morgan sixth and Rory Butcher – himself recovering from earlier setbacks in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla – in seventh.

Following his second-race stall, Colin Turkington took his WSR BMW from 14th on the grid to eighth.

Turkington was running behind race-two victor Gordon Shedden’s Team Dynamics Honda and the Team Hard Cupra Leon of Bobby Thompson when contact between this duo at Coppice put Shedden into a massive slide, from which he recovered to wrest ninth from Thompson.

Following his earlier podium, BTCC debutant George Gamble jumped the start yet lost places on the opening lap before serving a drive-through penalty in his Ciceley BMW.

BTCC Donington race 3 results - 16 laps

Cla Driver Time Gap
1 United Kingdom Jake Hill 18'41.379  
2 United Kingdom Ashley Sutton 18'43.527 2.148
3 United Kingdom Josh Cook 18'50.640 9.261
4 United Kingdom Daniel Lloyd 18'51.257 9.878
5 United Kingdom Tom Ingram 18'51.483 10.104
6 United Kingdom Adam Morgan 18'51.845 10.466
7 United Kingdom Rory Butcher 18'52.424 11.045
8 United Kingdom Colin Turkington 18'52.626 11.247
9 United Kingdom Gordon Shedden 18'53.693 12.314
10 Bobby Thompson 18'56.030 14.651
11 Ireland Aron Taylor-Smith 19'01.881 20.502
12 United Kingdom Jason Plato 19'02.367 20.988
13 United Kingdom Dan Cammish 19'02.612 21.233
14 United Kingdom Stephen Jelley 19'03.709 22.330
15 United Kingdom Ricky Collard 19'04.904 23.525
16 Michael Crees 19'07.634 26.255
17 United Kingdom Sam Osborne 19'07.810 26.431
18 Dexter Patterson 19'08.853 27.474
19 United Kingdom Ollie Jackson 19'14.977 33.598
20 George Gamble 19'15.421 34.042
21 Jersey Jack Butel 19'15.751 34.372
22 Jade Edwards 19'16.490 35.111
23 United Kingdom Ash Hand 19'16.498 35.119
24 Nicolas Hamilton 19'26.108 44.729
25 Rick Parfitt Jr. 19'24.791 1 Lap
26 United Kingdom Aiden Moffat 19'28.003 1 Lap
  United Kingdom Tom Chilton 3'53.011 13 Laps
  United Kingdom Daniel Rowbottom    

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