Colin Turkington stormed to his second BTCC win of the day at Croft for eBay Motors, beating Honda’s Gordon Shedden and Team HARD’s Tom Onslow-Cole in changeable conditions at the North Yorkshire circuit.
Click here for the full Round 14 results.
Turkington originally lost the lead from pole position to MG’s Jason Plato, who started the race on wet tyres along with his Triple Eight team-mate Sam Tordoff. However as conditions at Croft continued to dry out, Turkington and Shedden were able to pass the leading MG’s with easy by lap four.
Shedden kept the pressure on Turkington in the middle of the race, but ultimately had no answer to the Northern Irishman’s pace as he won by 2.987 seconds. The result is Shedden’s ninth poidum of the year, with the Scot only finishing on the podium when he finishes in the points.
“It’s a crazy statistic,” said Shedden to TouringCars.Net. “It was really, really tricky to be honest. It took a lot of time to try and figure out what grip there was. It was great for the spectators, definitely!”
Tom Onslow-Cole completed the podium, his third of the season. Having worked his way up to seventh by the end of the opening lap, Onslow-Cole made strong progress in the first third of the race and was up to third by lap four.
Matt Neal finished in fourth, despite heavy pressure from sixth-placed Rob Collard and seventh-placed Andrew Jordan late in the race.
Nick Foster continued his WSR team’s strong performances by finishing seventh, ahead of Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan in eighth. The race three reverse grid draw will see the Lancashire racer starting from pole position for the second time in his BTCC career.
Pirtek Racing’s Jeff Smith and Speedworks’ Dave Newsham completed the top ten.
In the S2000-class Jack Sears Trophy David Nye scored his first win of the season, ahead of Lea Wood and Jake Hill, who were separated by a mere 0.046 seconds after a race-long battle.
After starting the race on wet tyres, MG’s Plato and Tordoff steadily dropped down the order to ultimately finish in 20th and 21st. The duo were even lapped by leader Turkington with their best laps around ten seconds off the pace. Michael Caine, who also started on wets, finished in 22nd.
Mat Jackson failed to finish the race for the second time this weekend, with suspension damage to his right-rear wheel following contact. James Cole failed to take the start after collecting a tyre stack on his way to the grid.
Race three takes place at 17:12 BST (18:12 CEST).