BTCC Snetterton: Turkington dominates opener from Hill

Turkington led team-mate Jake Hill all the way, via two safety cars, to head a 1-2 for the West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport squad.

In scorching conditions, Turkington led the field, and had just extended his advantage over Hill to over one second when the safety car was called for the first time on lap five, with the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Michael Crees in a vulnerable position on the exit of the Hamilton left-hander.

Turkington, who as points leader was allowed just one lap of hybrid usage, got an excellent restart, but Hill (allowed four laps of hybrid) reeled the Northern Irishman in, and was applying serious pressure when the safety car appeared again.

This time it was the Laser Tools Racing Infiniti Q50 of Aiden Moffat in trouble, the Scot getting pitched into the barriers at Riches after contact with the troubled Josh Cook’s BTC Racing Honda.

The restart came with three laps of green-flag racing remaining, and Turkington this time kept Hill at arm’s length to cross the finish line 1.098s in front.

“It’s a dream weekend so far,” smiled Turkington, who has claimed the full 23 points for pole, the win, leading a lap and fastest lap.

“I have never been so hot in this car in my life. It was handling really well – it’s just the focus and concentration, trying to keep the car on the limit and manage the gap to the guys behind.

“The safety car was difficult, because it always takes a lap to bring the front tyres back in.”

Tom Ingram used his inherited third place on the grid to run in the final podium position throughout, and keep up his title challenge with his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.

Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai i30N

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Ingram shadowed Hill early on, but the front-wheel-drive cars appeared to be fading in the hot conditions, although the two safety-car periods did alleviate this slightly.

The BMW of Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan, who had wriggled clear of a frantic first-lap battle with the third WSR BMW of Stephen Jelley, gave Ingram a hefty mid-race whack at Oggie’s before the second safety-car period, but Ingram held firm to complete the podium.

Jelley was a solid fifth, while Jason Plato did an excellent job to convert his sixth-place starting position to the same result in his BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R.

Plato had a horde of Team Dynamics Hondas and Motorbase Performance Ford Focuses crawling all over him early doors, but got a break while Dan Cammish attempted to chisel his Ford ahead of the Honda of Dan Rowbottom.

While Cammish went on to seventh, Rowbottom narrowly fended off the second Motorbase Ford of Ash Sutton – they were side by side at the finish line – for eighth, with Gordon Shedden (Dynamics Honda) in their wheeltracks after battling past the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Ricky Collard.

Cook made decent progress from 22nd to 14th on the first lap in his BTC Honda, but lost positions in the middle of the race, conceded further ground in the clash with Moffat, and finished 20th.

BTCC Snetterton - Race 1 Results

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval
1	Colin Turkington	15	32'10.063
2	Jake Hill	15	32'11.161	1.098	1.098
3	Tom Ingram	15	32'13.667	3.604	2.506
4	Adam Morgan	15	32'14.234	4.171	0.567
5	Stephen Jelley	15	32'15.196	5.133	0.962
6	Jason Plato	15	32'16.582	6.519	1.386
7	Dan Cammish	15	32'17.038	6.975	0.456
8	Daniel Rowbottom	15	32'17.978	7.915	0.940
9	Ashley Sutton	15	32'18.008	7.945	0.030
10	Gordon Shedden	15	32'18.100	8.037	0.092
11	Ricky Collard	15	32'20.913	10.850	2.813
12	Daniel Lloyd	15	32'21.661	11.598	0.748
13	Ash Hand	15	32'22.045	11.982	0.384
14	Bobby Thompson	15	32'22.284	12.221	0.239
15	Rory Butcher	15	32'22.425	12.362	0.141
16	George Gamble	15	32'25.703	15.640	3.278
17	Aron Taylor-Smith	15	32'27.584	17.521	1.881
18	Ollie Jackson	15	32'27.826	17.763	0.242
19	Dexter Patterson	15	32'28.481	18.418	0.655
20	Josh Cook	15	32'29.671	19.608	1.190
21	Sam Osborne	15	32'29.782	19.719	0.111
22	Jack Butel	15	32'30.183	20.120	0.401
23	Rick Parfitt Jr.	15	32'35.012	24.949	4.829
24	Nicolas Hamilton	15	32'35.464	25.401	0.452
25	Will Powell	15	32'35.481	25.418	0.017
	Aiden Moffat	9	19'05.203	6 Laps	6 Laps
	Jade Edwards	8	17'10.862	7 Laps	1 Lap
	Michael Crees	3	6'13.695	12 Laps	5 Laps
	Tom Chilton	0
View full results