Colin Turkington enjoys ‘super weekend’ of ‘snakes and ladders’

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington had a ‘super weekend’ in the British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill, where the four-time champion reduced his points deficit by more than 20 to the top of the table.

Turkington went into the weekend 75 points adrift of his leading rival, having had a mixed time in the previous weekend at Croft.

Scoring his second successive pole position, and his third of the year, Turkington dominated the opening race to claim a lights-to-flag victory and notch up the 71^st of his BTCC career.

With a reduction in hybrid for race two, along with running the less favourable medium compound tyre, Turkington scored another podium finish with third, having had to cede to the soft-tyre shod Jake Hill and Daniel Rowbottom.

Starting tenth in the reverse-grid finale, the Northern Irishman made limited progress to claim ninth at the flag, but had been running higher before being caught in an unfortunate track position following a safety car restart when his team-mate Adam Morgan encountered technical difficulties.

Despite that, Turkington left Scotland as the highest points scorer of the weekend, and now sits 54 points behind points leader Ingram with nine races still to run.

“It was a super weekend and a great way to bounce back after Croft,” said Turkington. “Reflecting on the weekend; pole, win race one and a podium in race two… just brilliant.

“Knockhill is a real test for driver and team and we delivered on all fronts.

“I started race three in tenth and finished ninth – it was like snakes and ladders out there.

“Sometimes the race doesn’t unwind the way you want and that was the case, but the aim was to score points and we’ve done that.

“We had really good pace with the BMW and I’m excited for the rest of the season.”