Rob Collard has taken his second win of the season in the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill, leading eBay Motors (WSR) team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole across the line for a 1-2 finish.
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Collard took the lead from the very start and led throughout the race, save for allowing team-mate Onslow-Cole to lead a lap for an additional bonus point. The victory marks the sixth win in Collard’s BTCC career.
Polesitter Jason Plato had a difficult start to the race – having lost out to Collard when the lights went out he was forced to defend heavily from Redstone Racing (Motorbase)’s Árón Smith. On the second lap of the race, whilst defending from Smith, Plato was tagged by the Irishman and spun into the gravel, out of the race.
At the same time as Plato’s off, his team-mate Andy Neate made contact with Lea Wood and went off into the gravel, whilst Dynojet’s Frank Wrathall also went out of the race, necessitating a lengthy safety car period.
When the race resumed on lap 11 the two WSR BMW’s immediately opened a comfortable lead, with the Ford Focus of Irishman Smith holding up the chasing pack. Such was the straightline speed of the S2000 machine compared to the chasing cars that first Paul O’Neill and then Gordon Shedden struggled to pass the youngster. However on the final lap, exiting the hairpin, Shedden got a run on smith to take third by a mere 0.011 seconds.
Smith held on to fourth, finishing ahead of team-mate Mat Jackson, Speedworks’ O’Neill, Honda’s Matt Neal, WSR’s Nick Foster and Pirtek’s Andrew Jordan. The seven cars that had been held up by Smith were covered by less than 2.5 seconds at the chequered flag.
Adam Morgan completed the top ten, ensuring that both Speedworks Toyota’s scored points for only the second time.
After taking his first win in the BTCC just two weeks ago at Snetterton, Scot Dave Newsham could only manage 11th in his Team ES Racing Vauxhall Vectra.
Round 20 of the championship takes place at 14:17 GMT.