Lights to flag win for Turkington at Croft
eBay Motors’ Colin Turkington was already the most successful BTCC driver ever around Croft coming into the weekend and he’s further enhanced his record with a lights-to-flag victory in the opening race at the Yorkshire venue.
The confident 32-year-old’s win today was particularly routine as he made a clean getaway from pole position before gradually pulling away from the chasing pack throughout the race.
Turkington took his seventh and eighth victories at the circuit in 2013 and is also currently enjoying a rich vein of form in recent events. A double win last time out at Oulton Park sent Turkington soaring the championship summit and he’s simply picked up from where he left off by taking another commanding victory here. This fact that both the driver and his BMW 125i M Sport seem perfectly suited to the 2.5 mile Croft circuit suggested his rivals would have their work cut out to challenge, and so it proved as Turkington scampered away to win by more than seven seconds after 14 laps of racing.
Gordon Shedden scored a lonely second position after getting the jump on Jason Plato on the run down to Clervaux for the first time, but the battle for the final place on the podium was anything but routine.
Plato initially seemed to get a good start in his MG6 but got bogged down in the run through the gears, giving Shedden’s Civic Tourer the chance to nip by. It was fraught behind on the exit of Clervaux as Matt Neal got sideways and was touched by the Honda of Andrew Jordan.
As the gaggle behind baulked up there was a chain of events that ultimately led to contact between Nick Foster’s BMW, Adam Morgan’s Mercedes and Rob Austin’s Audi A4. The first two retired with damage, whilst Austin continued at the rear of the field before enduring further incidents later in the race.
The fallout from the incident meant Rob Collard was now attached to the rear bumper of Plato’s MG, whilst Jordan squabbled with the sister MG behind. Neal fought his way back up to sixth after despatching Tordoff’s MG.
Tordoff dropped further down the order when the hard-charging Alain Menu surged past later in the race, and Airwaves Racing’s Mat Jackson immediately followed suit. It had been a hard day for the ‘Blue Ovals’ on Saturday but Jackson’s rise to eighth and the AmD Focus of Dave Newsham taking 11th will have provided some promise for the marque.
Hunter Abbott scored his first ever top ten finish in the BTCC, whilst Martin Depper scored his first points of the season with 14th in the Pirtek Racing Civic.
There was myriad of incidents further down the field with a number of cars finishing the race with damaged bodywork. Austin and Warren Scott’s VW touched at the final hairpin, forcing the Crabbie’s Focus of Jack Clarke to take evasive action. Clarke then had his own moment with Jack Goff’s Vauxhall Insignia, whilst Glynn Geddie’s Toyota was forced to pit by stewards with potentially dangerous bodywork flailing from his bonnet.
1 Colin TURKINGTON 14 laps
2 Gordon SHEDDEN +7.478
3 Jason PLATO +13.890
4 Rob COLLARD +14.153
5 Andrew JORDAN +14.692
6 Matt NEAL +15/054
7 Mat JACKSON +19.173
8 Sam TORDOFF +20.905
9 Hunter ABBOTT +21.361
10 Dave NEWSHAM +22.038
11 Fabrizio GIOVANARDI +31.159
12 Rob AUSTIN +33.990
13 Martin DEPPER +38.463
14 Tom INGRAM +38.504
15 Marc HYNES +40.556
16 Jack CLARKE +44.342
17 Lea WOOD +46.239
18 Jack GOFF +46.567
19 Aiden MOFFAT +54.186
20 James COLE +1:00.014
21 Ollie JACKSON +1:00:052
22 Aron SMITH +1:03.623
23 Dan WELCH +1:04.310
24 Warren SCOTT +1:04.924
25 Simon BELCHR +1:11.282
26 Glynn GEDDIE -1 lap
27 Robb HOLLAND -2 laps