Colin Turkington cruised to victory in the first British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Knockhill in a dominant performance. While the four-time champion and his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport took the chequered flag by over eight seconds, the championship fight hotted up once more thanks to a rare non-finish for series leader Tom Ingram . Poleman Turkington and the rest of the top three on the grid opted for the soft Goodyear tyre for this race, and the Northern Irishman converted his starting position into the lead, but front-row partner Aron Taylor-Smith made a terrific getaway in his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra and lost very little to the rear-wheel-drive BMW.
With fourth-on-the-grid Dan Rowbottom choosing to get the medium option tyre out of the way in this race, he lost out to Josh Cook at the start, with the West Countryman chasing third-placed Adam Morgan in the sister WSR BMW to Turkington’s. While Turkington set the fastest lap and extended his advantage at the front, Morgan closed in on Taylor-Smith, with Cook’s Speedworks Motorsport-run LKQ Toyota Corolla GR Sport homing in on the duo in front. Taylor-Smith held on firmly until three-quarters distance, when Morgan got a cutback out of the slow McIntyre’s right-hander and shouldered his way inside at the Butcher’s kink.
Contact between the BMW and the Vauxhall allowed a chink of light for Cook, who forced his way past Taylor-Smith and into third place at the chicane. Cook wasn’t finished yet. With three laps remaining, he tried a brave move around the outside of Morgan at Clark, and the red-headed duo remained side by side through the hairpin.
Cook then pulled off a wonderful manoeuvre around the outside into Duffus Dip to claim second position. But Cook, with a new engine fitted overnight to the Toyota, was well adrift of winner Turkington, who was 8.308 seconds to the good at the finish.
“It always looks easy when you’re six seconds up the road, doesn’t it?” said Turkington. “We were quick yesterday, and the beauty with the BMW is you don’t have to massively detune it for the race. “Once I got the first two laps out of the way, and Aron and Adam were having their scrap, I could just stride away.
” Despite being on the medium tyre, Rowbottom in fifth place didn’t seem to be losing too much ground to the cars in front, but his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST came under pressure towards half-distance from the similarly medium-shod WSR BMW of title contender Jake Hill . Rowbottom didn’t make it too difficult for Hill when the diminutive Kentishman made a move at the hairpin at half-distance, and the BMW also got close to fourth-placed Taylor-Smith by the chequered flag. Rowbottom now came under pressure from four-time champion team-mate Ash Sutton, who was running the soft tyre and got ahead of the bearded Midlander into Duffus on the final lap to claim sixth place.
Eighth place went to the Speedworks Toyota of Rob Huff after a fine battle with Dan Cammish (Alliance Ford) – Huff’s Toyota Gazoo Racing GB team-mate Andrew Watson had been ahead of them and Sutton before he got into a slide at the chicane and rallycrossed his way out of the top 10. Tenth place went to the PMR Vauxhall of Mikey Doble, who further extended his Jack Sears Trophy points lead. Ingram started with the medium tyres on his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N from 15th on the grid, and had dropped to 16th when he tried a move on Aiden Moffat ’s Toyota at Duffus.
Contact sent Moffat into a slide, and when the Scot returned to the track his trajectory brought him into further contact with the left-front of Ingram, who was forced to retire to the pits due to the damage. His championship lead over Hill is now down to 10 points. BTCC Knockhill Race 1 Result.
