BTCC Snetterton: Hill overcomes penalty for second win

Hill started from pole position in a race delayed by a thunderstorm that struck during the preceding Formula 4 race, but he and Bobby Thompson briefly jumped their West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sports forward before lights out, earning themselves 10-second penalties.

To add insult to injury, Thompson bogged down dramatically at the start proper, and converted his front-row grid position to fourth place.

With the sun out, Rob Huff and Chris Smiley had taken the gamble on the grid for slick tyres, and at the end of the formation lap, Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram, Colin Turkington, Dan Rowbottom, Ronan Pearson and Aron Taylor-Smith all peeled in for the dry-weather rubber.

With the new BTCC sporting regulations, the leading runners from the opening race had to go for the hard-compound slick, meaning it would be tough to switch on in the slippery conditions, but Smiley and Pearson were on mediums, with Taylor-Smith on softs.

Up front, Hill got his head down to negate his penalty. By one-third distance, he was over five seconds in front of second-placed Andrew Watson, who had made a sensational start in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport to run ahead of Dan Cammish’s Allied Racing Ford Focus ST and Thompson.

But this was the crossover point, at least for Taylor-Smith, whose Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra set the fastest lap on its soft Goodyears, had carved through most of the hard-tyred runners, but still had a deficit of over 40s to erode to Hill.

Within two laps of this, heavy rain returned, and those on the slicks were scuppered. With five laps remaining, Hill had cancelled out his penalty, and his advantage grew even bigger when Watson skated off the circuit at the esses.

Bobby Thompson, Team BMW (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Cammish had fended off concerted early attacks from Thompson, and eventually crossed the line in second place, 16s behind the victorious Hill.

“It’s probably the most professional drive I’ve ever done,” said Hill. “That man Craig [Porley, Hill’s engineer] is an absolute genius. How fast is that car? It’s ridiculous. It was like driving a car in the dry.”

Of his penalty, he added: “It was handbrake and hold, but as I loaded it up it crept a little bit. I thought, ‘If they’ve seen it, I’m done.’”

Josh Cook finished fourth in his Speedworks Toyota ahead of the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Tom Chilton, Mikey Doble (PMR Vauxhall) and Watson, but all moved up as a result of Thompson’s penalty, which dropped the BMW to seventh.

Doble then moved above Chilton in the results to fourth when the veteran was penalised post-race for passing the Vauxhall during an off-track excursion at the esses and relegated to fifth.

The top 10 was completed by Aiden Moffat (Speedworks Toyota), Sam Osborne (Alliance Ford) and Daryl DeLeon (Unlimited Motorsport Cupra Leon), with Osborne drawn on the reversed-grid pole.

Taylor-Smith headed home the slick runners in 12th, while Ingram lost the final point for 15th place on the last lap to Turkington, who had pitted back onto wet-weather tyres.

A disastrous race, featuring numerous offs, befell championship leader Sutton, who pitted for wets after hitting the barriers and trailed home a lap down.

The results mean Hill has moved level with Turkington for second in the standings, just eight points behind Sutton.

BTCC Snetterton - Race 2 results

1 - 2
Cla	Driver	#	Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport		BMW 330e M Sport	12	26'43.848
2	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK		Ford Focus ST	12	+6.260 26'50.108	6.260
3	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	+9.974 26'53.822	3.714
4	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	12	+10.696 26'54.544	0.722
5	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing		Vauxhall Astra	12	+14.794 26'58.642	4.098
6	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	+16.626 27'00.474	1.832
7	B. Thompson Zeus Cloud Racing with WSR		BMW 330e M Sport	12	+16.643 27'00.491	0.017
8	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	+23.431 27'07.279	6.788
9	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK		Ford Focus ST	12	+26.823 27'10.671	3.392
10	D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard		Cupra León	12	+29.165 27'13.013	2.342
11	S. Sumpton Restart Racing		Cupra León	12	+33.174 27'17.022	4.009
12	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing		Vauxhall Astra	12	+1'08.350 27'52.198	35.176
13	C. Smiley Restart Racing		Cupra León	12	+1'32.158 28'16.006	23.808
14	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	+1'33.739 28'17.587	1.581
15	C. Turkington Team BMW		BMW 330e M Sport	12	+1'51.605 28'35.453	17.866
16	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	12	+1'52.272 28'36.120	0.667
17	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK		Ford Focus ST	11	1 Lap
18	A. Morgan Team BMW		BMW 330e M Sport	11	1 Lap
19	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors		Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	11	1 Lap
20	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK		Ford Focus ST	11	1 Lap
View full results

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