Colin Turkington has moved into the lead of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship after winning the second of today’s three races at the Oulton Park circuit in Cheshire to add to his victory in race one.
Turkington led from start to finish in his Team RAC BMW and also set the race’s fastest lap for a bonus point. As a result he will go into the day’s third race eight points clear of Vauxhall’s Matt Neal who finished the race in fourth.
The 27-year-old from Portadown, who now has an unrivalled three wins in 2009, said: “The BMW has always been very strong at Oulton and in the heat – today is 25 degrees – it just excels. I’m just making a point of getting the starts right and then I get on with it and it’s working out for us.”
Finishing second was Neal’s VX Racing team-mate Fabrizio Giovanardi. Third was the Racing Silverline Chevrolet of Jason Plato who successfully fended off intense pressure from old foe Neal.
Today’s third race – the 12th of the season – is scheduled to start at 5.10pm. Notably, the top seven from race two will be reversed at the front of the starting grid for race three. That puts James Thompson, in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic, on pole position.
For full race results click on this link: www.btcc.net/html/raceresults_detail.php?race_id=59&season_id=52
Elsewhere, finishing race two in fifth was Airwaves BMW’s Jonathan Adam – a result that was in complete misfortune to that of team-mate Robert Collard who failed to start when his car’s propshaft broke on the final warm-up lap. VXR’s Andrew Jordan, who had briefly been ahead of Adam, was sixth closely followed by Thompson and Adam Jones’s Cartridge World Carbon Zero SEAT Leon.
Local star Paul O’Neill, from Widnes, gave the small Sunshine.co.uk with Tech-Speed team more points with ninth spot in his Honda Integra ahead of Alan Morrison – achieving his first point of the season with tenth in the Team Aon squad’s Ford Focus ST.
One driver who felt he should have been comfortably in the points was Turkington’s RAC team-mate Stephen Jelley who, having been as high as fourth, finished down 14th after running off the track in a skirmish with Neal.
At least he finished – having lost third with a puncture in race one, Mat Jackson’s day of woe continued as this time his Silverline Chevrolet’s gearbox broke. That was after he’d made it as high as tenth having started from last on the grid. James Nash was also a retirement in the pit lane in his RML Chevrolet. John George was unable to start - his TH Motorsport with JAG team busy replacing his Honda Integra's engine after a race one failure.
