BTCC Donington: Shedden pips Ingram to race two victory

The Scot and his Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R won a cat-and-mouse duel with the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Ingram, the margin just 0.197 seconds at the finish.

Shedden, who had three more laps of hybrid usage than Ingram, ran third in the early stages, after Colin Turkington stalled his front-row starting West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport when the lights went out.

George Gamble had used the rear-wheel drive of his Ciceley Motorsport BMW to burst through from sixth on the grid and round Shedden at Redgate to move into second place.

Shedden got back past BTCC debutant Gamble into Redgate on the third lap, and immediately started slashing the advantage of Ingram, who had moved just over a second in front.

Shedden got very close to Ingram into the Old Hairpin on the 10th lap of 16; the Hyundai squirrelled on the kerbs, and the Honda was able to drive around the outside at Schwantz Curve to take the lead.

But Ingram seemed to have hybrid usage in hand at the end of the race that Shedden didn’t, despite having three laps fewer over the distance – he kept the veteran under pressure, but Shedden just held on. It transpired that the Honda's dash wasn't updating its laps of hybrid usage until halfway around the lap, “so I opted not to use it”. 

“There’s some great racing and the car’s mega at the minute, so I’m really happy,” said Shedden.

“This is the first experience of the different levels of hybrid available – I’m managing what I’m doing but I don’t know what he’s doing.

“But I did enough – you’ve only got to beat him by an inch, haven’t you?”

Podium: Race winner Gordon Shedden, Halfords Racing with Cataclean Honda Civic Type R , second place George Gamble, Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport. third place Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai i30N

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Gamble and Adam Morgan hung on in their Ciceley BMWs to make it a leading quartet, only to fall away slightly in the closing laps before Gamble claimed his first BTCC podium finish.

An entertaining battle for fifth between Josh Cook’s BTC Racing Honda and Ash Sutton’s Motorbase Performance Ford Focus went the way of Cook.

Just behind them was Bobby Thompson, who continued an excellent BTCC return weekend in his Team Hard Cupra Leon to beat the Excelr8 Hyundai of Dan Lloyd to seventh.

From the back of the grid, Jake Hill (WSR BMW) and Rory Butcher (Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla) stormed through to complete the top 10.

There was further joy after the race for Hill after his earlier exclusion, when TOCA chief Alan Gow drew him on reversed-grid pole.

Turkington could only recover to 14th, while Dan Cammish ran as high as 13th in his previously burnt Motorbase Ford before a late pitstop.

BTCC Donington Park race two results - 16 laps

Cla	Driver	Time	Gap
1	Gordon Shedden	18'42.545
2	Tom Ingram	18'42.742	0.197
3	George Gamble	18'44.795	2.250
4	Adam Morgan	18'45.775	3.230
5	Josh Cook	18'48.257	5.712
6	Ashley Sutton	18'49.907	7.362
7	Bobby Thompson	18'50.377	7.832
8	Daniel Lloyd	18'50.533	7.988
9	Jake Hill	18'52.775	10.230
10	Rory Butcher	18'56.634	14.089
11	Aron Taylor-Smith	18'59.177	16.632
12	Daniel Rowbottom	18'59.624	17.079
13	Jason Plato	19'00.913	18.368
14	Colin Turkington	19'00.985	18.440
15	Michael Crees	19'03.294	20.749
16	Aiden Moffat	19'04.614	22.069
17	Ash Hand	19'06.112	23.567
18	Dexter Patterson	19'09.375	26.830
19	Jade Edwards	19'10.272	27.727
20	Sam Osborne	19'42.193	59.648
21	Dan Cammish	19'14.975	1 Lap
22	Tom Chilton	19'15.228	2 Laps
23	Nicolas Hamilton	19'49.437	2 Laps
	Ricky Collard	10'09.286	8 Laps
	Ollie Jackson	10'20.977	8 Laps
	Jack Butel	6'28.361	12 Laps
	Stephen Jelley
	Rick Parfitt Jr.
View full results