Ciceley Motorsport’s George Gamble secured a lights-to-flag win in the final British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Knockhill, as Team BMW’s Colin Turkington took over the lead of the championship.
Gamble had gained pole for the partially-reversed race by finishing in seventh in race two earlier in the day, with the random draw then seeing his position selected to start race three from the front.
The BMW driver made a clean getaway from his first-ever front-row starting position in touring cars, opening a gap of just over three tenths of a second over Toyota’s Rory Butcher in the early laps.
Butcher’s charge for the win began to fade from around the fifth lap onwards, as Gamble pulled clear to almost a second whilst Turkington drew closer to Butcher.
That allowed Gamble to extend his lead to almost five seconds towards the end of the race, and he went on to take his first victory in the BTCC by the biggest winning margin of 2022 thus far.
On lap 17, Turkington lost second to Hill with a slow exit from Clark, allowing Hill to get in front before the hairpin.
Hill then got past Butcher for second on the exit from the hairpin and the run to the first corner, with Turkington briefly following into third.
But by this stage the hybrid-less Butcher was struggling for pace, and as Hill pulled clear into second, Butcher was only just able to cling on to the final podium place.
Turkington claimed fourth, but with it the Northern Irishman is the new championship leader, with 227 points, five points clear of Tom Ingram.
Race two winner Ash Sutton brought his NAPA Racing UK Ford home in fifth, ahead of Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden in sixth.
On the opening lap, Ingram had attempted to pass Shedden for third at McIntyre’s corner, but the two made contact and Shedden dropped four places whilst Ingram tumbled to 20th.
Team BMW’s Stephen Jelley was seventh, after losing out to Shedden on the tenth lap, ahead of BTC Racing’s Josh Cook in eighth, the Honda man making up five places on the opening lap before settling into that place for the remainder of the race.
The top ten was completed by Excelr8 Motorsport’s Tom Chilton and Laser Tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat.
Ciceley’s Adam Morgan salvaged his weekend, blighted by a car stall prior to race one, with 11th, ahead of the recovering Hyundai of Ingram in 12th.
NAPA Racing’s Dan Cammish failed to finish after getting caught up in the incident between Shedden and Ingram on the opening lap and retiring with broken suspension.
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 42 | I |  |
George GAMBLE | Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport | BMW 330e M Sport | 24 | 20:52.392 | 51.473 | 1 |
| 2 | 24 | M | |
Jake HILL | ROKiT MB Motorsport | BMW 330e M Sport | 24 | 4.332 | 51.410 | 6 |
| 3 | 6 | M | |
Rory BUTCHER | Toyota GAZOO Racing UK | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 24 | 7.357 | 51.499 | 2 |
| 4 | 50 | M | |
Colin TURKINGTON | Team BMW | BMW 330e M Sport | 24 | 7.883 | 51.510 | 5 |
| 5 | 1 | M | |
Ashley SUTTON | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 24 | 8.503 | 51.849 | 7 |
| 6 | 52 | M | |
Gordon SHEDDEN | Halfords Racing with Cataclean | Honda Civic Type R | 24 | 8.971 | 51.825 | 3 |
| 7 | 12 | M | |
Stephen JELLEY | Team BMW | BMW 330e M Sport | 24 | 9.143 | 51.785 | 8 |
| 8 | 66 | I | |
Josh COOK | Rich Energy BTC Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 24 | 13.901 | 51.675 | 13 |
| 9 | 3 | M | |
Tom CHILTON | Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com | Hyundai i30 Fastback N | 24 | 16.516 | 51.937 | 10 |
| 10 | 16 | I | |
Aiden MOFFAT | Laser Tools Racing | Infiniti Q50 | 24 | 18.437 | 51.830 | 12 |
| 11 | 33 | I | |
Adam MORGAN | Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport | BMW 330e M Sport | 24 | 19.101 | 51.788 | 18 |
| 12 | 80 | M | |
Tom INGRAM | Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com | Hyundai i30 Fastback N | 24 | 19.984 | 51.573 | 4 |
| 13 | 32 | M | |
Daniel ROWBOTTOM | Halfords Racing with Cataclean | Honda Civic Type R | 24 | 20.503 | 51.861 | 15 |
| 14 | 21 | M | |
Ricky COLLARD | Toyota GAZOO Racing UK | Toyota Corolla GR Sport | 24 | 20.745 | 51.578 | 11 |
| 15 | 40 | I |  |
Árón TAYLOR-SMITH | Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing | CUPRA Leon | 24 | 27.955 | 52.113 | 16 |
| 16 | 777 | I | |
Michael CREES | CarStore Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 24 | 29.029 | 51.947 | 19 |
| 17 | 97 | I | |
Ash HAND | CarStore Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 24 | 29.842 | 52.089 | 27 |
| 18 | 123 | M | |
Daniel LLOYD | Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com | Hyundai i30 Fastback N | 24 | 30.541 | 52.019 | 22 |
| 19 | 11 | I | |
Jason PLATO | Rich Energy BTC Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 24 | 31.510 | 52.156 | 26 |
| 20 | 19 | I | |
Bobby THOMPSON | Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero | CUPRA Leon | 24 | 32.591 | 52.048 | 28 |
| 21 | 48 | M | |
Ollie JACKSON | Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan | Ford Focus ST | 24 | 40.101 | 52.185 | 21 |
| 22 | 96 | M | |
Jack BUTEL | Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com | Hyundai i30 Fastback N | 24 | 40.352 | 52.229 | 23 |
| 23 | 77 | M | |
Sam OSBORNE | Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan | Ford Focus ST | 24 | 40.653 | 52.248 | 17 |
| 24 | 99 | I | |
Jade EDWARDS | Rich Energy BTC Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 24 | 43.273 | 52.489 | 20 |
| 25 | 62 | I | |
Rick PARFITT JR | Uptonsteel with Euro Car Parts Racing | Infiniti Q50 | 24 | 51.425 | 52.766 | 25 |
| 26 | 20 | I | |
Will POWELL | Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero | CUPRA Leon | 24 | 52.814 | 52.752 | 29 |
| R | 28 | I | |
Nicolas HAMILTON | Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing | CUPRA Leon | 18 | DNF | 52.883 | 24 |
| R | 17 | I | |
Dexter PATTERSON | Laser Tools Racing | Infiniti Q50 | 11 | DNF | 52.179 | 14 |
| R | 9 | M | |
Dan CAMMISH | NAPA Racing UK | Ford Focus ST | 0 | DNF | N/A | 9 |