Jake Hill turns around weekend with race three victory

MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill salvaged his title aspirations by taking a triumphant victory in the reverse-grid British Touring Car Championship race at Silverstone, denying Daniel Lloyd a first win in three years.

Lloyd had started the race from pole position after the top eleven from race two were reversed, and the Vauxhall driver made a clean start to lead into the first corner.

Although his Power Maxed Racing team-mate Jason Plato had started alongside, the two-time champion was down to fourth by the first few corners, with Hill assuming second, up one place, and BMW’s Stephen Jelley in third.

For the first few laps Lloyd opened up a margin of just over half a second, but Hill began to close the gap from lap four onwards and on lap ten the Ford driver got a run on Lloyd exiting Luffield and into Woodcote, claiming the lead as the duo cross the starting line.

Although Lloyd was never much more than half a second away thereafter, he couldn’t quite create a gap to re-take the lead, despite a mistake from Hill four laps from the end at Brooklands.

Lloyd had to settle for second, his second podium finish of the day, with Laser Tools Racing’s Ash Sutton completing the podium after the championship leader gained five places during the race, including making up two at the start.

Excelr8 Motorsport’s Chris Smiley was fourth, having grabbed third from Jelley on the third lap before losing out to Sutton eight laps from the end.

Jelley was the leading BMW driver in fifth, ahead of Plato in sixth, the Vauxhall driver having only lost one further place to Sutton since his poor start.

Aiden Moffat brought the second Laser Tools Racing Infiniti home in seventh, ahead of Colin Turkington in eighth, who made a late-race charge to gain four places in the second half of the race, having dropped to 12^th early on.

Turkington had been battling in a tight pack on the third lap, and exiting Copse corner he moved over on Ciceley Motorsport’s Tom Chilton, sending the BMW spinning across the infield of the circuit and into Motorbase’s Sam Osborne, although both continued in the race at the tail of the pack.

Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom, the best-placed Honda driver, and the second MB Motorsport Ford of Ollie Jackson completed the top ten.

Having won both of the day’s opening races, Toyota’s Rory Butcher was just 13^th, finishing behind BMW’s Tom Oliphant and Excelr8’s Tom Ingram.

Having been excluded from race two for failing the ride-height check, Josh Cook started the race from the back of the grid but could only recover to 18^th, having had to carry the success ballast for crossing the line second earlier on. BTC Racing has appealed his exclusion from race two.

Elsewhere, Gordon Shedden was just 21^st after the Team Dynamics driver near-stalled at the start of the race, resulting in a score of no points for the Scot all weekend.

The only retirements of the race were Team HARD’s Jack Mitchell, who ran over debris early on, and the Hybrid development car of Andrew Jordan.

In the drivers’ championship, Sutton now has 285 points, ahead of Ingram (249), Hill (247), Turkington (245) and Cook (222).

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	24	M		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	22	21:24.184	57.848	3
2	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	0.698	58.011	1
3	1	I		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	22	1.444	57.908	8
4	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	22	4.474	58.080	5
5	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	22	4.906	57.923	4
6	11	I		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	22	5.269	58.030	2
7	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	22	5.476	58.094	7
8	2	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	22	6.146	57.977	9
9	32	I		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	22	7.740	58.104	6
10	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	22	8.731	57.883	18
11	15	M		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	22	8.938	57.958	20
12	80	I		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	22	10.652	58.119	10
13	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	11.434	58.221	11
14	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	22	12.965	58.155	12
15	31	I		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	22	13.277	58.156	15
16	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	22	13.566	58.146	17
17	18	I		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	22	14.111	58.249	26
18	66	I		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	22	15.390	58.317	29
19	41	I		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	22	15.487	58.264	25
20	23	M		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	16.120	58.308	27
21	52	I		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	22	16.273	58.241	19
22	62	I		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	22	20.854	58.332	23
23	96	I		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	22	21.147	58.372	16
24	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	22	21.405	58.528	28
25	4	M		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	22	22.992	58.090	14
26	44	M		Andy NEATE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	22	27.816	58.590	22
27	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	22	28.265	58.538	24
28	3	I		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	22	28.534	58.068	13
R	19	I		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	8	DNF	58.464	21
R	2022	–		Andrew JORDAN	TOCA / Cosworth / M-Sport	Toyota Corolla BTCC Hybrid	6	DNF	57.944	30