‘Another tough day’ for Colin Turkington at Thruxton

Colin Turkington described Thruxton as ‘another tough day’ in the British Touring Car Championship, with the Team BMW driver ceding ground in the drivers’ championship battle.

Turkington went into the fourth event of the season second in the standings, ten points away from the lead, but left having slipped to fourth and 33 points adrift of Ash Sutton.

After qualifying in tenth for the opening race, the Northern Irishman acknowledged it had been a difficult day, and hoped on race day that he would be able to move forward to take advantage of the reverse grid race.

In the opening race, Turkington only gained one place when Toyota’s Andrew Watson dropped down the order, and he spent the rest of the race following team-mate Adam Morgan home, having had the second-fewest laps of hybrid boost available.

The 42-year-old made slight progress in race two, despite dropping a place at the start, and powered past Morgan for seventh with the use of his now increased hybrid at the mid-distance.

Drawn to start from second for the final race, Turkington made contact with NAPA Racing’s Daniel Rowbottom at the complex on the opening lap, dropped to fourth, and then fell to seventh in the closing stages having struggled with the handling of his car.

“It’s been another tough day for me,” said Turkington, who has won just four of his 69 races in the BTCC at the Hampshire circuit.

“We still scored points with three top ten finishes, which is good as we’re still scoring points, but we’d like to be scoring more points and getting the BMW back on the podium.

“Thruxton’s not an easy place to get a car handling well. We did that for race two and felt super-strong – it was nice to be able to come back through the pack a bit.

“But race three was difficult and we struggled with the rear axle. But that can happen.

“We’ve a bit of homework to do before Oulton but we’ll come back stronger and look to make the most of some tracks coming up that should suit the BMW.”