Reigning British Touring Car champion Colin Turkington believes he “had to be clever” to secure a podium finish at Thruxton in his 400th BTCC race.
The three-time series winner immediately jumped Dan Cammish’s Honda Civic thanks to his rear-wheel drive launch off the line before carrying the momentum and diving down the inside of Sam Tordoff at Campbell.
He then followed home Team BMW stablemate Andrew Jordan, who secured his third victory of the season, marking the fifth victory out of eight races for the 3 Series.
Despite the apparent pace of the new-for-2019 BMW 330i M Sport, Turkington told TouringCars.Net he was “conscious” of attacking Jordan for the lead as Cammish was a threat behind.
“It feels really nice to get another podium, especially on my 400th race start. The car felt much better in that race compared to the first one,” said Turkington.
“We had a car that I could manage a bit better. We were still wringing the neck every lap. Obviously Dan [Cammish] was P3 so I was conscious not to attack AJ too much.
“If I tried to pass and failed he’d have been right on me, so I just had to be clever and get two cars over the line as quickly as possible.”
Turkington admits he’s been happy to taste such success so early in the development of the new car, but believes capitalising on the “circumstances” has contributed towards that success.
“It’s been nice. We’ve definitely made the most of the circumstances, particularly me at Donington with a really tricky qualifying session,” he explained.
“I got to the front and was able to stay there, and it’s the same for Andy today – if you’re at the front of the pack you can control the race a bit better.
“So it’s a really good reward for the whole team.”
Both he and Jordan will carry the weight into the final encounter, which Turkington believes will be far more difficult as they won’t have track position on lighter cars.
“It’s obviously going to be more difficult when you’re starting in the pack, there’ll be lighter cars up ahead,” Turkington said.
“I know how important it is to try and score some decent points in race three.
“It’s no good just having two good finishes, you need three so I’ll be focussed on that.”
The final race of the day for the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton gets underway at 17:35 BST.