Colin Turkington has won the second of yesterday’s three HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship races at the Croft circuit in North Yorkshire – adding to his victory in the first race of the day.
As in race one Northern Irishman Turkington led all the way from pole position and set the race’s fastest lap for an extra bonus point.
Also as in race one he was again followed home by team-mate Stephen Jelley in second and Jason Plato, in his Racing Silverline Chevrolet Lacetti, in third.
In fact, the top six was exactly as it finished the day’s opening race, with Airwaves BMW's Robert Collard holding on to fourth position ahead of Vauxhall pair Fabrizio Giovanardi and Matt Neal.
Plato, though, had needed to figure out a way back past Collard after the BMW driver had overtaken him at the start. By the time he was through, mid-race entering the Jim Clark Esses, there was little he could do about the disappearing Turkington and Jelley.
Turkington, who had taken over the lead of the championship from Neal in race one, now heads the standings by the increased margin of 23 points. He is therefore guaranteed to leave Croft tonight still at the top of the table – regardless of what happens in the day’s third and final race. Plato has now moved three points past Giovanardi into third, although is still some 14 adrift of second-placed Neal.
Meanwhile, Andrew Jordan followed home Giovanardi and Neal to make it three Vauxhalls in a row in seventh. But it was Adam Jones who provided the race’s main excitement – coming from near the back of the grid up to eighth to finish right behind the trio of Vectras in his Cartridge World Carbon Zero Racing SEAT Leon.
Behind, James Thompson’s Team Dynamics Honda Civic just held off Paul O’Neill’s Sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra as they finished ninth and tenth after a race-long battle.
And it is O’Neill who will start race three from pole position after the top ten were reversed to form the front of the grid. Thompson will start second while Jelley and Turkington, dominant so far, will this time have it all to do from ninth and tenth.
Elsewhere, there were several notable names missing from the race. Unable to start were Tom Chilton and Dan Eaves, their Aon Ford Focus and Cartridge World SEAT having suffered substantial damage in race one. For Eaves, the damage has proved terminal and his day is over as what has been a miserable season for him continues.
Chilton’s substitute team-mate Tom Onslow-Cole was a late starter and ultimate retirement – his car suffering a repetition of the engine problems that had prevented it from showing in race one. Collard’s team-mate Jonathan Adam also retired early on when his BMW suddenly slowed while in sixth position.
And Harry Vaulkhard and Mat Jackson, involved in separate incidents in race one, had already declared they had withdrawn from the event.
