Jake Hill battles to race one win at Knockhill

Jake Hill picked up his second win of the season in the opening British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Knockhill, after a hard-fought battle with NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton.

At the start, Hill held the lead, but the B Motorsport driver soon found himself under pressure from reigning champion Sutton, who sought to take advantage of the longer time that the rear-wheel drive BMW takes to get its tyres up to temperature.

Sutton moved to the outside of Hill at the hairpin at the end of the opening lap, giving him an overlap heading onto the start-finish straight.

Sutton then swept around the outside of Hill into the first corner, but despite opening up an initial half a second lead, Hill was soon back onto the rear bumper of the Ford.

Lap six saw Hill nerf the back of Sutton’s car as the latter drove defensively into the hairpin, damaging the front of his BMW.

Two laps later Hill powered past Sutton before the first corner, but after cutting back Sutton was in the lead again by Turn 3.

However, before another lap was out Hill was back in front, this time with a clean move down the inside on the main straight, and thereafter he was able to open up a gap to claim the fifth win of his BTCC career.

Sutton held on to take second, a seventh podium of his thus-far winless season, despite heavy pressure from Team BMW’s Colin Turkington in the final laps, with the Northern Irishman having to settle for third.

Stephen Jelley followed his BMW team-mate home in fourth, gaining just one place which came as a result of the demise of Adam Morgan on the formation lap, with the Ciceley Motorsport driver being towed to the pits before re-joining to start at the back of the pack.

Morgan’s team-mate George Gamble came home in fifth, ahead of the leading Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai of points leader Tom Ingram in sixth, although Turkington’s podium has reduced the gap to just seven points.

Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden was seventh, the Honda driver getting by fellow Scot Rory Butcher for the place on the penultimate lap.

Butcher brought his Toyota home in eighth, with NAPA Racing’s Dan Cammish and the second Toyota of Ricky Collard completing the top ten.

Title contender Josh Cook had run in the top ten early on, but the BTC Racing driver lost three places on lap 14, before succumbing to Morgan, on a recovery drive, to slip to 15^th late in the race.

Morgan gained 15 places from where he ultimately started to take the chequered flag in 14^th, although he ran out of time to catch the Infiniti of Aiden Moffat in 13^th before the end of the race.

Jack Butel was the sole retirement, coming into the pits after five laps with an issue on his Hyundai, whilst Daniel Rowbottom finished three laps down after he had pitted from tenth at the end of the second lap.

Elsewhere there were off-track incidents for both Power Maxed Racing’s Michael Crees and BTC Racing’s Jason Plato, leaving them to finish two laps down in 26^th and 27^th.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:15 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	24	M		Jake HILL	ROKiT MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	24	20:52.156	51.316	1
2	1	M		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	24	3.640	51.737	2
3	50	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	24	3.784	51.406	3
4	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	24	5.979	51.740	5
5	42	I		George GAMBLE	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	24	6.363	51.453	6
6	80	M		Tom INGRAM	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	6.933	51.670	8
7	52	M		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type R	24	13.008	51.546	13
8	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	13.984	51.736	7
9	9	M		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	24	14.242	51.700	10
10	21	M		Ricky COLLARD	Toyota GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	14.381	51.758	15
11	3	M		Tom CHILTON	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	15.296	52.035	16
12	19	I		Bobby THOMPSON	Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero	CUPRA Leon	24	16.120	51.965	12
13	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	17.124	51.817	9
14	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	24	18.220	51.459	4
15	66	I		Josh COOK	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	24	21.591	51.571	14
16	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing	CUPRA Leon	24	23.599	52.189	21
17	77	M		Sam OSBORNE	Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan	Ford Focus ST	24	34.493	52.465	23
18	62	I		Rick PARFITT JR	Uptonsteel with Euro Car Parts Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	34.803	52.400	27
19	123	M		Daniel LLOYD	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	36.371	52.804	22
20	17	I		Dexter PATTERSON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	37.039	51.824	25
21	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	Apec Racing with Beavis Morgan	Ford Focus ST	24	38.259	52.368	26
22	20	I		Will POWELL	Autobrite Direct with JourneyHero	CUPRA Leon	24	41.723	52.431	28
23	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	24	42.293	52.426	24
24	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	Yazoo with Safuu.com Racing	CUPRA Leon	24	48.873	52.635	29
25	97	I		Ash HAND	CarStore Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	+ 2 LAPS	52.479	17
26	777	I		Michael CREES	CarStore Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	+ 2 LAPS	52.106	18
27	11	I		Jason PLATO	Rich Energy BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	22	+ 2 LAPS	51.915	19
28	32	M		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type R	21	+ 3 LAPS	51.648	11
R	96	M		Jack BUTEL	Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	5	DNF	53.242	20