Jake Hill extends championship advantage with race two victory

Jake Hill fought past Tom Ingram to claim victory in the second British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Silverstone, extending his points advantage in the process.

Race one winner Ingram made a strong start when the lights went out, but Hill was never more than half a second back from the EXCELR8 Motorsport leader.

Closing in on the leading Hyundai after six laps, Hill then dived inside Ingram for the lead at Brooklands on the seventh time around, with Ingram seemingly defenceless to fight back.

As Hill began to eke out a slight advantage at the front, Ingram then found himself being reeled in by the chasing BMW of Colin Turkington, who had reclaimed third from NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish a lap before the lead changed.

By lap 12, Turkington was all over the back of Ingram and duly got the cutback on the Hyundai exiting Luffield to seize second.

With it now being a WSR BMW 1-2 at the front, Hill eventually went on to score his seventh win of the season by just under a second from Turkington.

Speedworks Motorsport’s Josh Cook completed the podium after Ingram, struggling with his tyres and a lack of hybrid, dropped behind the Toyota on lap 15 as Cook made a late dive at Brooklands.

Ingram took the chequered flag in fourth, ahead of the leading NAPA Ford of Cammish in fifth.

Early in the race, it looked as if Ash Sutton would be the leading NAPA challenger, but the reigning champion was hit with a drive-through penalty for his mechanics still working on the grid when the three-minute board was shown, in an attempt to fix his radio, which had stopped working. That dropped Sutton to last when he served the penalty on lap five, much to the protestations of the team.

Restart Racing’s Chris Smiley moved up three places on the first lap, then the CUPRA driver fought to gain further places and benefitted through the demise of the likes of Tom Chilton, who was the only retirement of the race.

In the end, Smiley took sixth and scored his second Independents’ win of the season, although he was only three tenths ahead of BMW’s Adam Morgan in seventh at the chequered flag.

EXCELR8’s Dan Zelos scored a career-best eighth, with the top ten completed by Power Maxed Racing’s Árón Taylor-Smith and NAPA’s Sam Osborne.

Toyota’s Rob Huff was 11^th, whilst Sutton finished in 12^th after team-mate Daniel Rowbottom dropped three seconds on the final lap to elevate the Ford driver, who also benefitted from a five-second time penalty for Andrew Watson for being out of position at the start.

Although that put Sutton in the mix for the reverse-grid draw for race three, he ultimately missed out as the top six were reversed, giving Smiley pole with Cammish alongside.

Race three is scheduled to get underway at 17:10 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	24			Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	22	23:54.086	1:04.045	2
2	20			Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	22	0.822	1:04.397	5
3	66			Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	4.562	1:04.230	6
4	80			Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	22	7.010	1:04.146	1
5	27			Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	22	8.439	1:04.162	3
6	222			Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	22	17.620	1:04.845	13
7	33			Adam MORGAN	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	22	17.959	1:05.383	11
8	45			Dan ZELOS	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	22	22.649	1:04.705	10
9	40			Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	23.752	1:05.430	12
10	77			Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	22	24.541	1:04.873	8
11	12			Rob HUFF	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	26.884	1:05.543	17
12	1			Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	22	27.284	1:03.980	4
13	32			Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	22	27.523	1:05.000	19
14	88			Mikey DOBLE	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	27.939	1:05.366	20
15	11			Andrew WATSON	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	30.900	1:05.182	9
16	29			Scott SUMPTON	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	22	33.443	1:05.276	15
17	16			Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	33.986	1:05.982	14
18	22			Nick HALSTEAD	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	22	37.838	1:05.153	16
19	18			Daryl DELEON	Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	CUPRA Leon	22	39.827	1:05.784	18
R	3			Tom CHILTON	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	11	DNF	1:05.370	7