Tom Oliphant secures race one win after lightning start

Team BMW’s Tom Oliphant won the opening British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Brands Hatch, after making a superb start which saw him jump from fourth on the grid into the lead at the first corner.

Team Dynamics duo Daniel Rowbottom and Gordon Shedden had locked out the front row of the grid in qualifying, but both made poor starts when the lights went out, allowing the pack behind to get a look in.

Rowbottom’s start was the worst, dropping the Honda driver six places off the line, whilst Shedden dropped to fourth through the first sequence of turns as Oliphant, Jake Hill, Aiden Moffat and Tom Ingram got ahead.

Hill dropped down to fifth after the first turn, as Moffat muscled his Infiniti up into second from fifth on the grid.

At Clearways Shedden made a move on Ingram’s Hyundai, with slight contact knocking the Excelr8 Motorsport driver into a slide and giving the Scot third by the end of the opening lap.

Moffat then became a cork in the bottle for Shedden for the first five laps, before the three-time champion got a run on his fellow Scot on lap five.

With the second Infiniti of Ash Sutton tearing around the outside line at the first corner, Shedden made a move at the next right-hander at Druids, whilst Moffat unwittingly inhibited team-mate Sutton’s attempted double pass, allowing Shedden into second.

Shedden then sought to reduce Oliphant’s then near four-second lead, but ultimately the Team BMW driver had enough pace in reserve to hold on and claim his second BTCC win, despite the lapped Rick Parfitt almost getting in the way at the final corner on the last lap.

Shedden took his second consecutive second, ahead of Rowbottom in third, who had clawed his way back onto the podium by lap ten after passing Jake Hill and then Moffat in quick succession over two laps.

Hill brought his MB Motorsport Ford home in fourth, ahead of Sutton in fifth, with Hill having got past Sutton on lap five when the two Infinitis got in each other’s way.

Ingram was sixth, ahead of team-mate Chris Smiley in seventh and Moffat in eighth.

The top ten was completed by BTC Racing’s Josh Cook and Team HARD’s Jack Goff, the latter having pushed hard to try to pass the Honda, to no avail despite some contact.

Stephen Jelley had crossed the finish line in ninth but the BMW driver was given a time penalty of five seconds for a false start, dropping him to 15^th.

Despite Oliphant’s win, the woes continued for WSR as Colin Turkington was only 21^st and out of the points, having spun whilst running in 14^th and only recovering one place after his spin in the race of zero attrition.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:40 BST.

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	15	M		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	24	19:50.305	49.041	4
2	52	I		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	24	0.188	48.777	2
3	32	I		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	24	4.603	48.823	1
4	24	M		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	24	9.811	49.085	3
5	1	I		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	10.007	49.152	7
6	80	I		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	11.289	49.194	6
7	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	11.633	49.213	8
8	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	11.938	49.184	5
9	66	I		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	24	15.398	49.349	9
10	31	I		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	24	15.720	49.271	11
11	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	24	15.982	49.323	12
12	18	I		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	24	16.339	49.081	13
13	11	I		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	24	17.510	49.318	17
14	4	M		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	24	18.683	49.306	15
15	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	24	18.771	49.320	10
16	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	19.025	49.567	16
17	41	I		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	24	19.257	49.495	18
18	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	24	22.713	49.415	21
19	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	24	23.051	49.485	20
20	3	I		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	24	23.443	49.452	24
21	2	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	24	24.816	49.393	14
22	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	24	25.081	49.617	23
23	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	24	27.159	49.545	19
24	23	M		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	24	28.500	49.791	26
25	96	I		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	24	28.720	49.540	27
26	44	M		Andy NEATE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	24	33.172	49.641	28
27	88	I		Glynn GEDDIE	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	24	36.402	49.784	22
28	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	24	37.808	49.953	29
29	62	I		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	23	+ 1 LAP	49.488	25