Stephen Jelley has taken his first win in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship with victory in the first of today’s three races at Rockingham.
Team RAC’s Jelley overtook early leader and rival BMW driver Jonathan Adam at mid-distance and from there romped clear to win by more than three seconds to become the eighth different race-winner in the BTCC this season.
Jelley said: “I was very disappointed with fourth on the grid yesterday but knew my car was good and that patience would pay off. I slotted into second at the start behind Jonathan and when he made a slight mistake I was through. Then just got my head down and made the break. It’s awesome.”
Second and third were Racing Silverline Chevrolet drivers Jason Plato and Mat Jackson. Plato, who started from pole position, set the race’s fastest lap for a bonus point. For Jackson, third place marked a continuation of his incredible run of podium results – now seven in a row.
In the title race, Vauxhall’s Fabrizio Giovanardi took sixth and Team RAC’s Colin Turkington tenth after a spin. As a result, Giovanardi has closed to within seven points of Turkington with two more races still to go this afternoon.
Meanwhile, Plato’s second place finish mean he is now just 29 points adrift of Turkington in third and very much also still in title contention.
Jelley passed Adam for the race lead at the Deene hairpin on lap nine out of 18 (the race being extended by two laps after a first lap collision between Vauxhall’s Matt Neal and Team Dynamics’ Johnny Herbert that forced a safety car period and the retirement of both drivers).
He then took full advantage of the fading Adam’s holding up of Plato and Jackson to draw clear. Plato eventually made it past Adam into the Tarzan hairpin and was soon followed through by Jackson at Gracelands. Adam would also fall prey to team-mate Robert Collard who was on something of a mission in the closing laps having lost ground earlier with a mistake at Gracelands while lying third.
Giovanardi took sixth but only after a race-long chase of Paul O’Neill eventually paid off on lap 15, the Vectra slipping by the sunshine.co.uk Honda Integra at Gracelands. That same lap also saw Turkington, who’d tentatively worked his way up to tenth from 14th, spin at Deene as he tried to pass James Nash’s RML Chevrolet. He recovered in 12th but not until the penultimate lap was he able to re-pass other team-mate Anthony Reid and then, in a right-left chop, Gordon Shedden’s Club SEAT SEAT Leon at Pif-Paf for tenth and a vital point.
Elsewhere, VXR’s Andrew Jordan and Nash took seventh and eighth after also passing O’Neill. Tom Chilton’s Team Aon Ford Focus ST had also been among them but a pit stop for new tyres dropped him to 18th.
Herbert & Neal aside, the only other retirement was newcomer Matt Hamilton who stopped his TH Motorsport Racing with Inten Honda Civic Type R in the pit lane after starting from the pit lane.
