Oulton Park BTCC: Jordan holds off Neal for victory

The WSR BMW driver took advantage of a front-row start to jump pole position driver Matt Neal (Team Dynamics Honda) into Old Hall corner at the beginning of the race. He controlled the pace thereafter, but Neal closed in over the last portion of the race.

Jordan had taken the softer tyres and they wilted, while Neal, on his normal tyres, closed in.

“I pushed to get a gap early on,” said Jordan, who has moved up to ninth in the points. “The tyres started to go off, and my engineer [John Waterman] told me on the radio that Neal was coming.

"I had to just make sure that I had enough in hand over the last couple of corners so that I was out of reach of a Matt Neal lunge!

“If the race had been another lap or two longer, I am not sure I could have won it. This is a great result.”

The battle for the final spot on the podium was titanic. Subaru racer Ash Sutton eventually claimed the place with a stunning double-pass over Colin Turkington (WSR BMW) and Aiden Moffat (Laser Tools Racing Mercedes) at Lodge corner on lap 10 of the 15-lap event.

A lap later, Turkington ran into the back of Moffat, who was also struggling on the softer tyres, under braking for Lodge but just a few hundred yards later an electrical problem on the BMW forced Turkington to drop to the bottom of the pack. 

Moffat held on to fourth pace, and he led home Rob Collard (WSR BMW) and Mat Jackson (Motorbase Performance Ford). 

Reigning champion Gordon Shedden, who had run in fifth spot early on, was shuffled back to seventh in the flag in his Team Dynamics Honda, despite a mid-race collision with the pursuing Josh Cook (Maximum Motorsport Ford).

The top 10 was completed by the Handy Motorsport Toyota of Rob Austin and the Team Hard VW CC of Jake Hill.

Tom Ingram, the points leader coming into the race, started in 12th spot but was involved in a lap-one crash with Jack Goff (Eurotech Racing Honda). That dropped him to the back and he had climbed to the fringes of the top 20, but his suspension failed on lap 12 and he was forced to pull off the circuit.

Despite the setback, Ingram held on to his championship advantage by eight points from Shedden. Collard is now in third spot.   

Matt James