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BTCC Donington R1: Cammish beats Turkington with opportunistic pass

Honda's Dan Cammish went some way towards avenging his final-round, title-losing British Touring Car Championship heartbreak of 2019 by winning the opening race of the 2020 season at Donington Park

An opportunistic Cammish took advantage of a ferocious early battle between four-time and reigning champion Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton to wrestle the lead on the fourth lap, and stayed in front for the remainder of what turned out to be a 19-lap encounter.

As predicted - not least by Cammish himself - his front-wheel-drive Team Dynamics-run Civic Type R lost a place at the start to the rear-driven Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50 of Sutton, while poleman Turkington established himself at the front in the West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330i M Sport.

Turkington was soon under pressure, losing time at the chicane in particular, and on the fourth lap Sutton tried a brave move around the outside of Schwantz Curve.

That appeared to put Sutton in the clear as he was on the inside for the following McLeans bend, but he left a chink of light on the inside as he completed the move on Turkington, and it was filled in no time by Cammish.

Cammish clung on to the inside for Coppice, where a concertina resulted in contact from behind for Turkington from Tom Ingram, and the BMW nerfing the Infiniti of Sutton into a spin.

Turkington survived that incident in second place, while Rory Butcher inserted his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus into third position.

The safety car appeared after 11 of the intended 16 laps, with Nicolas Hamilton's Team Hard Volkswagen in the gravel trap at the chicane and Senna Proctor's Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai parked on the grass on the inside of Redgate.

There was a four-lap sprint to the finish, with Cammish holding off Turkington and Butcher to the chequered flag.

Ingram had dropped to fifth behind the second BMW of Tom Oliphant in the Coppice chaos early in the race, but his Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla took fourth at the restart, with Oliphant's resulting loss of momentum allowing Matt Neal's Honda through too.

Sam Osborne put in a very solid drive to take seventh in the older-model Civic run by MB Motorsport, while Chris Smiley was just behind after bringing his Excelr8 Hyundai through from 14th on the grid on its competition debut.

Stephen Jelley was another big mover, the Team Parker Racing BMW 1-Series pilot wriggling through from a massive midfield scrum to claim ninth, while Tom Chilton completed the top 10 on his first race outing in a BTC Racing Honda.

Chilton's team-mate Jake Cook was a first-lap victim of contact with Jake Hill, but recovered to 13th ahead of the charging Sutton, who took fastest lap on the final tour.

Hill subsequently retired his MB Honda from a strong seventh place.

Result - 19 laps

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Dan Cammish Team Dynamics Honda 25m13.779s
2 Colin Turkington WSR BMW 0.707s
3 Rory Butcher Motorbase Performance Ford 1.144s
4 Tom Ingram Speedworks Motorsport Toyota 1.941s
5 Matt Neal Team Dynamics Honda 2.817s
6 Tom Oliphant WSR BMW 3.722s
7 Sam Osborne AmD Tuning Honda 4.855s
8 Chris Smiley Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai 5.492s
9 Stephen Jelley Team Parker Racing BMW 7.322s
10 Tom Chilton BTC Racing Honda 7.623s
11 Bobby Thompson Trade Price Cars Racing Audi 7.936s
12 Adam Morgan Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 8.249s
13 Josh Cook BTC Racing Honda 9.498s
14 Ash Sutton Laser Tools Racing Infiniti 9.595s
15 Aiden Moffat Laser Tools Racing Infiniti 11.457s
16 Michael Crees BTC Racing Honda 13.075s
17 Ollie Jackson Motorbase Performance Ford 13.398s
18 Jack Goff Team Hard Volkswagen 13.837s
19 Carl Boardley Team Hard BMW 14.266s
20 Andy Neate Motorbase Performance Ford 14.599s
21 Ollie Brown Team Hard Volkswagen 15.050s
22 Jack Butel Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes 19.350s
- James Gornall Trade Price Cars Racing Audi Retirement
- Senna Proctor Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai Retirement
- Nicolas Hamilton Team Hard Volkswagen Retirement
- Jake Hill AmD Tuning Honda Retirement

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