Sam Tordoff admitted that, despite appearing to take a commanding race victory from a spectator’s viewpoint, his win in the second British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Oulton Park was far from comfortable.
Tordoff claimed his fifth career victory and his first of the season ahead of Colin Turkington and Jason Plato’s Subarus, and in doing so became the ninth different winner of the eleven races completed so far in this years championship.
The winning margin of 1.638 seconds was largely established at the start, as Tordoff used his extra momentum to power around the outside of polesitter Turkington into Old Hall and move his BMW 125i M-Sport into the lead, from which he never looked likely to slip backwards.
Commenting afterwards, Tordoff admitted the main concern was the unknown qualities of the Subaru Levorg, which has finally found it’s competitive feet after a turbulent start to it’s life and ran with success ballast for the very first time in race two after a 1-3 result in the weekends opener.
“It was a tough race, I didn’t know what the Subaru’s were going to be like for pace. I didn’t know if they were biding their time, like yesterday, just to come at me in the second half of the race.” said Tordoff.
“I didn’t know how to gauge it really, with all that weight on board. But I just got my head down and pushed and John [engineer] was managing the gap on the radio for me, and it turns out it was enough in the end.”
He also believes that producing consistent starts is the secret to his strong position as he now heads into the final race at 17:10 at the head of the Drivers championship, five points clear of three-time champion, Matt Neal.
“It was won at the start. [I’m] producing consistent starts and it’s the difference between winning and finishing second. That was the big difference today. And I managed the gap, the boys did a great job, Team JCT600 with GardX have produced me a fantastic car. I didn’t think it could get much better from race one but it was a different animal there!”
Tordoff claimed his first win for Team JCT600 with GardX at the Cheshire venue last season and admits he enjoys the annual trip to Tarporley immensely.
“It’s my favorite circuit, so if you enjoy a circuit you drive it well. But it’s always been kind to me, I’ve got a great record here. Long may that continue!”
Matt Neal will start race three from pole position alongside MG’s Josh Cook.