Croft BTCC: Turkington leads Subaru 1-2 in incident-packed Race 1

The Northern Irishman had a good start in the Team BMR Subaru Levorg GT, but Daniel Lloyd also got away well from the front row in the Eurotech Racing Honda Civic, heading into the first corner alongside.

Lloyd appeared to try to close the door too early at the first corner, Clervaux, with his Honda barely a nose ahead, making contact with Turkington and speared off into the gravel trap, bringing out the first safety car of the race, with Turkington now leading ahead of team-mate Jason Plato.

West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff had gone off the circuit in avoidance, and the championship leader found himself dropping down towards the back of the top ten while the safety car held the field.

When the race restarted, Turkington and Plato began to build a lead, while Ashley Sutton was third in the Triple Eight MG and was fighting to hold off the West Surrey Racing BMW of Jack Goff, with Andrew Jordan holding fifth in the Motorbase Ford Focus.

Jordan’s Motorbase team-mate Mat Jackson made a mistake on lap four and dropped behind the WSR BMW of Rob Collard and the Ciceley Mercedes of Adam Morgan, but Morgan’s race wasn’t to last much longer, retiring with broken suspension at the start of lap six.

Team BKR’s Mark Howard brought out the second safety car after he crashed out at Clervaux at the start of lap nine. The race was shortly resumed, but there was drama at the Hairpin, as Dan Welch’s Proton, Kelvin Fletcher’s Chevrolet and James Cole’s Team BMR Subaru were all involved in contact, leaving Cole’s Subaru Levorg stranded at the exit, while Aiden Moffat stopped on circuit in his Mercedes A-Class.

There were just two laps to go when the race restarted, with Turkington still leading the way ahead of Plato, while Sutton defended third from Goff.

Turkington went on to take his second win of the season, with Plato completing a record setting 1-2 finish for the team.

“They didn’t give it to easy today, three or four safety cars is quite unusual,” said Turkington.

“You really have to manage the safety car restarts as your tyre temperature just drops off.”

Jake Hill scored a career-best finish with sixth in his Team HARD Toyota Avensis, with Rob Collard finishing seventh after starting 13th in the West Surrey Racing BMW, ahead of Motorbase’s Mat Jackson, Speedworks’ Tom Ingram, with Team BKR’s Aron Smith completing the top ten.

Matt Neal was the best-placed of the Team Dynamics Honda drivers in 12th, and courtesy of finishing one place ahead of Sam Tordoff, now joins the BMW driver in joint-lead of the championship, 20 points ahead of Rob Collard

Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes