Gordon Shedden took victory in the opening race at Croft after he jumped pole sitter Tom Chilton at the start. Despite leading the entire race, Shedden had to fend off incredible pressure from Rob Collard in the closing laps, with the duo crosing the line side-by-side. However Shedden held on to take the win by a mere 0.035 seconds.
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It marks Shedden’s first win in the championship since 2008 and is the fourth for Honda this year. Collard’s second position means that he once again just misses out on the win, despite being the fastest driver in the closing stages of the race.
Jason Plato finished in third after following his team-mate Alex MacDowall for the early part of the race, whilst his main championship rival Matt Neal was right on his tail in fourth. Paul O’Neill took an excellent fifth for Team sunshine.co.uk, with O’Neill pressuring Neal throughout the race and weaving frantically to make his presence felt.
James Nash just edged out his new rookie team-mate Daniel Lloyd by taking sixth. Lloyd’s seventh-placed finish is an excellent result on his debut in the championship.
Tom Onslow-Cole was the top Team Aon driver in eighth to maintain his championship challenge. His team-mate Chilton, who had started from pole position, ran third for much of the race but dropped down the order in the closing laps as both Ford’s suffered with excessive tyre wear. Chilton eventually finished in 18th after pitting for a tyre change as a result of a puncture.
Mat Jackson took ninth, despite being tagged into a hefty slide by Andrew Jordan on lap 7. This allowed several drivers thorugh but Jackson fought back as the front-wheel drive cars began to suffer with higher tyre wear. Jordan completed the points positions with a tenth place finish.
The second Airwaves BMW of Steven Kane struggled to improve during the race and Kane only slightly improved on his grid position to finish 11th.
Alex MacDowall had been running in the points but ran wide on lap 12 and lost a significant number of positions, ultimately crossing the line in 13th.
David Pinkney, who is currently one of two drivers running the new NGTC engine, suffered an engine failure just 3 laps into the race. It means he is unlikely to start race two and may possibly miss the third race as well. Lea wood retired with an alternator failure on his Honda Integra, whilst Arthur Forster went out of the race by spinning into the field at the Clark Esses.
Perhaps unsurprisinigly, Gordon Shedden was the driver to receive a bonus point for the fastest lap of the race.