Race report

BTCC Donington Park

Turkington dominates eventful second Donington race

A commanding drive from Colin Turkington gave Team BMR back-to-back wins in the second BTCC race at Donington, as Matt Neal and Adam Morgan completed the podium after surviving an entertaining scrap.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Apr 19, 2015, 3:21 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Podium: race winner Colin Turkington

Colin Turkington, Team BMR leads

Matt Neal, Honda Yuasa Racing

Gordon Shedden, Honda Yuasa Racing and Colin Turkington, Team BMR

Podium: race winner Colin Turkington, second place Matt Neal, third place Adam Morgan

Adam Morgan, Wix Racing

Andrew Jordan, Pirtek Racing

Colin Turkington, Team BMR

Warren Scott, Team BMR

From second on a grid determined by fastest laps from the day’s opening race, Turkington, carrying 57kg of success ballast, wasted no time in seizing the advantage from poleman Gordon Shedden.

The pair made light contact as they came through Redgate, with Turkington’s Volkswagen edging clear on the run down the Old Hairpin to take the lead as Triple Eight MG driver Andrew Jordan snuck around the outside of Shedden’s Honda Civic Type R into second.

An early Safety Car period, caused by the car of BMR team boss Warren Scott getting stuck in the gravel after being hit Alex Martin’s Ford, bunched up the pack, but Turkington judged the restart to perfection as Jordan was left to fend off Shedden and Morgan’s Mercedes.

Jordan was able to hang on initially on his soft tyres, as Shedden – also on softs but carrying 66kg of ballast – began a steady descent through the field, his Honda teammate Neal going in the opposite direction from his starting slot of seventh.

But Jordan’s rubber also soon began to deteriorate, and he dropped behind both Morgan and Neal exiting Coppice with a handful of laps left, only to repass as Neal attempted a forceful move on Morgan at the chicane that cost both drivers time.

As the Mercedes driver ran wide, Neal was then able to make his pass on Jordan stick for second at Redgate, before proceeding to halve the impressive 5.7 second gap Turkington had built at the head of the field in the closing laps, falling 2.5s short at the chequered flag.

Jordan meanwhile fell back into the clutches of Morgan and Rob Collard’s West Surrey Racing BMW, the MG cutting across the gravel at the chicane as the battle for the final podium place came to a head.

While Morgan managed to make his move into third stick, Jordan managed to cling on to fourth as Collard lost out to the ballast-laden BMR VW of race one winner Plato as a result of the botched move and had to settle for sixth.

Josh Cook meanwhile battled his way through to seventh place, missing out on denying Collard sixth by a wafer-thin margin of 0.009s.

Eighth place went to Jack Goff’s MG, which had run in the leading group early on only to drop back as the race wore on, with the BMWs of Sam Tordoff and Andy Priaulx completing the top 10 finishers.

Having been a non-starter in race one, BMR’s Aron Smith fought his way from 29th and last on the grid to finish 12th behind Dave Newsham’s Chevrolet, while Shedden had to be content with 14th place as he struggled with a toxic combination of soft tyres and his considerable ballast.

In the reverse grid draw, Cook's finishing position of seventh was drawn, giving the Jack Sears Trophy runner pole for the final race of the day ahead of Collard and Plato.

Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1 Colin Turkington Volkswagen 22:58.065 2 Matt Neal Honda 2.501 3 Adam Morgan Mercedes 8.832 4 Andrew Jordan MG 10.484 5 Jason Plato Volkswagen 10.693 6 Rob Collard BMW 10.982 7 Josh Cook Chevrolet 10.991 8 Jack Goff MG 12.002 9 Sam Tordoff BMW 12.150 10 Andy Priaulx BMW 12.320 11 Dave Newsham Chevrolet 13.666 12 Árón Smith Volkswagen 14.514 13 Tom Ingram Toyota 14.695 14 Gordon Shedden Honda 17.086 15 Jeff Smith Honda 17.387 16 Aiden Moffat Mercedes 19.452 17 Hunter Abbott Audi 25.108 18 Rob Austin Audi 25.210 19 Martin Depper Honda 26.380 20 Kieran Gallagher Toyota 37.303 21 Simon Belcher Toyota 54.977 22 Stewart Lines Toyota 58.907 23 Alex Martin Ford 1:06.987 24 Richard Hawken Infiniti 1:15.832 Retirements - Mike Bushell Ford - Daniel Welch Proton - Warren Scott Volkswagen - Derek Palmer Jr. Infiniti - Andy Wilmot Proton

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Haryanto holds off Vandoorne for maiden GP2 victory

Next article Lopez takes lights-to-flag Marrakech win

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

1 h

Tom Cruise interested in racing ARCA car, per NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

4 h

Gibbs, Spire and Gabehart argue over contempt and injunction

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Charlotte II

4 h

William Byron to run Jeff Gordon throwback Axalta scheme at Phoenix

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 5 h

Alexander Rossi takes over IR-28 testing as IndyCar pushes new chassis to the limit at Sebring

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts