BTCC Oulton Park: Turkington completes comeback with victory

Turkington started the day 27th and last on the grid but shot his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport back into contention with storming drives over the first two races. 

That put him third on the reversed grid for the finale, and Turkington got himself ahead of the front-row-starting Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST of Dan Cammish at the start to move up into second. 

From fifth on the grid, the Motorbase Ford of championship leader Ash Sutton was squeezed into the pitwall when the gap he was aiming for inside the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Tom Ingram vanished. 

That damaged the right-front suspension, and the stricken Sutton received a further punt from Josh Cook at Old Hall before parking the Ford on the grass on the inside of the circuit. 

This resulted in a safety car, with poleman Adam Morgan leading Turkington and Jake Hill in a WSR BMW 1-2-3. 

Hill, from seventh on the grid, had got up to fifth at the start, and the call for the safety car came as the cars headed up the hill out of the chicane. 

But no safety car boards were shown until the exit of Deer Leap, and Hill had already taken advantage by leapfrogging Ingram and Cammish at Druids. 

Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Two laps after the restart, Turkington drew to the outside of Morgan at Lodge, then hung on around the outside of Old Hall before audaciously taking the lead when he seized the inside line at Cascades. 

Morgan, shuffled onto the outside, also lost out to Hill, who then set fastest lap as he chased down Turkington. 

But Hill never got close enough to make a real attack for the lead, and as the race wore on Turkington looked ever stronger – with two laps remaining the gap was over a second and he won by 1.762s. 

“Last night I was not expecting to win a race – I didn’t know what sort of day I was in for,” said Turkington. 

“The start was the important thing. I didn’t know what the pace would be like on the hard tyres [the option rubber was run by all but four competitors in this race]. 

“Then it was pressure to the end – Jake was there but I felt I had enough in my pocket.” 

Ingram sat behind Morgan throughout to gain ground on Sutton in the championship with fourth place, while Cammish was next up. 

Josh Cook, One Motorsport with Starline Racing Honda Civic Type-R (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Aiden Moffat was the highest-placed of those on soft tyres in this race, and he charged up from 15th on the grid to sixth in his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R, ahead of team-mate Cook, who had a three-place grid penalty from his incident with Bobby Thompson in race two and started from sixth instead of third. 

Cook just held on for seventh from Dan Rowbottom, whose Motorbase Ford was also on softs, while the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corollas of Ricky Collard and Rory Butcher completed the top 10. 

With spots of rain in the air, the Team Hard Cupras of Nic Hamilton and Dan Lloyd started the race on wet-weather rubber, albeit Lloyd only did so when the turbo boost pipe came adrift on the green-flag lap and he was forced to pit anyway.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h	Points
1	Colin Turkington		18	28'55.921				20
2	Jake Hill		18	1.762				17
3	Adam Morgan		18	4.305		2.543		15
4	Tom Ingram		18	4.709		0.404		13
5	Dan Cammish		18	6.176		1.467		11
6	Aiden Moffat		18	7.179		1.003		10
7	Josh Cook		18	9.306		2.127		9
8	Daniel Rowbottom		18	9.512		0.206		8
9	Ricky Collard		18	11.786		2.274		7
10	Rory Butcher		18	17.512		5.726		6
11	George Gamble		18	19.322		1.810		5
12	Tom Chilton		18	19.949		0.627		4
13	Stephen Jelley		18	20.749		0.800		3
14	Sam Osborne		18	21.766		1.017		2
15	Andrew Watson		18	22.875		1.109		1
16	Jade Edwards		18	25.203		2.328
17	Ronan Pearson		18	29.115		3.912
18	Jack Butel		18	32.133		3.018
19	Nick Halstead		18	33.189		1.056
20	Dexter Patterson		18	33.375		0.186
21	Will Powell		18	39.181		5.806
22	Mikey Doble		18	52.137		12.956
23	Bobby Thompson		17	1 lap
24	Daniel Lloyd		17	1 lap
25	Nicolas Hamilton		17	1 lap
26	Aron Taylor-Smith		14	4 laps
27	Ashley Sutton		0
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