Adam Morgan cruises to race three victory
Adam Morgan secured a stellar second BTCC career victory with a flawless drive in the final race at Thruxton.
Starting from pole position the WIX Racing Mercedes immediately pulled away from the field and was more than three seconds up the road by mid-distance. He had to hold his nerve after a brief safety car period but the young talent was able to again peg back the field following the restart.
Despite it being his second overall victory, following a win at the 2014 finale at Brands Hatch, it was the first time the Lancastrian had stood on the top step of the podium. His maiden win effectively came in the stewards room when first on-the-road driver Jason Plato was excluded from the result, so Morgan was delighted to have finally taken the chequered flag ahead of his rivals.
MG Triple Eight’s Andrew Jordan maintained his championship challenge with a lonely second place finish and despite the 25-year-old having yet to win in 2015, he is showing the sort of consistency that is important over the course of a season.
Sam Tordoff scored his first podium since switching to West Surrey Racing after he had to defend from the team’s former driver Colin Turkington. Reigning champion Turkington has had a relatively low key weekend in Hampshire but the Ulsterman has still scored solid points in every race.
Honda Yuasa Racing made the most gains during the race with championship leader Gordon Shedden and team-mate Matt Neal finishing in fifth and sixth respectively.
Shedden swapped positions with Rob Austin’s Audi in the early exchanges and he also made his way past the BMW of Rob Collard and MG’s Rob Goff later in the race. Neal produced the fightback drive of the day after blitzing his way through the field from the rear of the grid. The triple champ made a number of impressive moves, including a rather aggressive pass by the Chevrolet of Josh Cook at the final chicane. His final dice was with old adversary Jason Plato with the Honda Civic Type R eventually having enough grunt to make the move stick on the penultimate lap.
Plato and Aron Smith brought home decent points for Team BMR in seventh and eighth, whilst Cook’s crazy race eventually ended with a ninth place finish.
The Power Maxed Racing driver made contact with team-mate Dave Newsham on lap four and then came out on top of a fiery scrap with Austin and Neal two tours later. Neal got his own back with the aforementioned moment at the final chicane but Cook’s stock continues to rise as he also scooped another Jack Sears Trophy win.
Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram rounded out the top ten.