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Marcus Simmons

BTCC Donington Park: Cammish wins again to take early points lead

The Yorkshireman made the most of being gifted the reversed-grid pole position, and led from lights to flag in wet conditions at the wheel of his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST.

It wasn’t easy for him early on – Tom Ingram speared down the inside of Colin Turkington into the Old Hairpin on the opening lap and, once an early safety-car period had ended, he applied pressure to Cammish.

There was another safety car shortly afterwards, but within a couple of laps Cammish was able to eke out a small gap to Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.

With nine laps remaining the margin was over one second, and Cammish took the chequered flag 3.044 seconds to the good.

“Fantastic,” said Cammish. “After qualifying I thought things might come back to me in the races, and they did. The car performed brilliantly.

“Qualifying needs a little bit of tweaking, but I knew we’d be a rocketship on Sunday – and we were.”

Start action, Dan Cammish, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST leads (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Life was far from easy for Ingram, who felt that his car was lacking the pace it enjoyed earlier.

At first he had to defend from Turkington, and as this duo battled so Ash Sutton and Jake Hill – from 15th and 16th respectively on the grid – began to close in, and with a few laps remaining the quartet was together.

Sutton’s Motorbase Ford dived into a chink of light inside Turkington’s West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport at McLeans on the 19th lap of 21.

Turkington tried to cling on and they ran abreast through Coppice, but the end result was team-mate Jake Hill managing to claim the inside line and fourth place at the chicane.

Sutton went on the attack on Ingram – a last-ditch lunge into the chicane on the final lap resulted in contact that sent Ingram across the gravel trap, although the reigning champion reached the finish line in second place, while Sutton just pipped Hill.

Dan Rowbottom ran in fifth place early on in his Motorbase Ford, but his bid to pass Bobby Thompson’s Team Hard Cupra Leon ended in disaster when Thompson attempted to fight back at McLeans, and contact sent Rowbottom skating through the gravel.

Thompson finished a distant sixth, with Stephen Jelley (WSR BMW) next up from Tom Chilton (Excelr8 Hyundai), Josh Cook (One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R) and the recovering Rowbottom.

The first safety car was triggered when Nick Halstead’s Hyundai needed retrieving from the gravel at Redgate, and the second by the end result of an incident at the restart.

Contact at the chicane between the WSR BMW of Adam Morgan and Motorbase Ford of Sam Osborne sent Morgan spinning to the back, while Osborne parked with damaged suspension on the approach to Redgate.

BTCC Donington Park - Race 3 results (21 laps)

Cla Driver Chassis Gap Interval
1 United Kingdom Dan Cammish      
2 United Kingdom Tom Ingram   3.044 3.044
3 United Kingdom Ashley Sutton   3.771 0.727
4 United Kingdom Jake Hill   3.884 0.113
5 United Kingdom Colin Turkington   4.683 0.799
6 Bobby Thompson   12.615 7.932
7 United Kingdom Josh Cook   14.883 2.268
8 United Kingdom Tom Chilton   15.964 1.081
9 Ireland Aron Taylor-Smith   16.192 0.228
10 United Kingdom Daniel Rowbottom   17.196 1.004
11 United Kingdom Rory Butcher   17.309 0.113
12 United Kingdom Andrew Watson   18.080 0.771
13 George Gamble   20.757 2.677
14 United Kingdom Ricky Collard   24.005 3.248
15 United Kingdom Aiden Moffat   25.906 1.901
16 Dexter Patterson   26.183 0.277
17 Jack Butel   26.473 0.290
18 United Kingdom Daniel Lloyd   28.684 2.211
19 Ronan Pearson   29.396 0.712
20 United Kingdom Stephen Jelley   34.562 5.166
21 Nicolas Hamilton   48.236 13.674
22 United Kingdom Adam Morgan   1 Lap 1 Lap
  Mikey Doble   5 Laps 4 Laps
  Jade Edwards   6 Laps 1 Lap
  Will Powell   15 Laps 9 Laps
  United Kingdom Sam Osborne   17 Laps 2 Laps
  Nick Halstead      
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