Mat Jackson held off a late-race charge by Ash Sutton to take the top honours in the final British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Croft, despite last-corner contact between the pair.
AmD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson had been selected to start the race from pole position after the top nine were reversed, but the Audi drivers lead would only last a lap, in part helped by the deployment of the safety car.
The race was only neutralised for one lap whilst the track was cleared after one of the tyre stacks was knocked out of position, with Team HARD’s Will Burns and Mike Epps not making it past lap one in the process.
When the race resumed, Mat Jackson made a move on Ollie Jackson for the lead at Sunny In but the duo made contact, dropping the AmD driver to ninth whilst the Ford driver moved into the lead.
At the time, Mat Jackson had Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin behind him in second, and the Toyota driver proved to be the cork in the bottle, allowing Jackson to open up a three-second lead.
On lap nine, Sutton made his way past Austin into second with a move around the outside at the first turn, having two laps earlier muscled his way past team-mate Jason Plato with a robust move at the hairpin.
Sutton then set about reducing the gap to Jackson at the front of the field, and the duo went into the final lap separated by less than a second. Sutton made his only move into the final corner of the final lap, but Jackson forced him out wide onto the grass, going on to take the win whilst Sutton could only claim second.
The podium was completed by the second Subaru of Plato, who got by Austin on the drag to the finish line to take his first podium of the season by a mere four thousandths of a second.
Austin thus had to settle for fourth, ahead of Honda’s Matt Neal in fifth, who charged through the field from 18th on the grid after his troubles in the first two races of the day.
The leading BMW was Colin Turkington in sixth, ahead of team-mates Andrew Jordan in seventh and Rob Collard in eighth, the latter having briefly been in fourth before contact from Gordon Shedden at Sunny In pushed him off the circuit and down five places.
Shedden later dropped back with issues of his own to finish in ninth behind Collard, closing the championship lead marginally to 11 points between the pair.
Ollie Jackson completed the top ten, having failed to make any recovery after the lap three incident and having also lost out to the charging Neal.
Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram recorded his fifth non-points finish out of six races, with the Toyota driver making up 12 places in the race but unable to secure any reward after his retirement from race two.
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME/GAP | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 3 | Mat JACKSON |  |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 16 | 24:06.484 | 1:25.933 | 3 | |
| 2 | 116 | M | Ashley SUTTON | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 16 | 0.877 | 1:26.370 | 8 |
| 3 | 99 | M | Jason PLATO | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 16 | 16.032 | 1:26.514 | 4 |
| 4 | 11 | Rob AUSTIN | |
Handy Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 16 | 16.073 | 1:26.309 | 2 | |
| 5 | 25 | M | Matt NEAL | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 16.517 | 1:26.681 | 18 |
| 6 | 4 | M | Colin TURKINGTON | |
Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 16 | 16.779 | 1:26.742 | 9 |
| 7 | 77 | M | Andrew JORDAN | |
BMW Pirtek Racing | BMW 125i M Sport | 16 | 17.575 | 1:27.276 | 5 |
| 8 | 5 | M | Rob COLLARD | |
Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 16 | 19.360 | 1:26.605 | 7 |
| 9 | 52 | M | Gordon SHEDDEN | |
Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 21.336 | 1:26.404 | 6 |
| 10 | 48 | Ollie JACKSON | |
AmDtuning.com with CobraExhausts | Audi S3 | 16 | 21.800 | 1:27.120 | 1 | |
| 11 | 30 | Martin DEPPER | |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 16 | 22.157 | 1:27.464 | 10 | |
| 12 | 33 | Adam MORGAN | |
Ciceley Motorsport | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 16 | 22.487 | 1:27.369 | 15 | |
| 13 | 22 | Chris SMILEY | |
BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 16 | 23.397 | 1:27.366 | 20 | |
| 14 | 18 | M | Senna PROCTOR | |
Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 16 | 25.645 | 1:27.369 | 13 |
| 15 | 17 | David NEWSHAM | |
BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 16 | 29.078 | 1:27.390 | 19 | |
| 16 | 80 | Tom INGRAM | |
Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 16 | 29.747 | 1:27.263 | 28 | |
| 17 | 10 | Ant WHORTON-EALES | |
AmDtuning.com with CobraExhausts | Audi S3 | 16 | 30.252 | 1:27.424 | 11 | |
| 18 | 303 | M | Matt SIMPSON | |
Simpson Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 35.417 | 1:27.217 | 17 |
| 19 | 24 | Jake HILL | |
TAG Racing | Volkswagen CC | 16 | 37.121 | 1:27.232 | 25 | |
| 20 | 2 | M | Tom CHILTON | |
Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 16 | 37.899 | 1:27.644 | 29 |
| 21 | 31 | Jack GOFF | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 16 | 40.379 | 1:27.896 | 22 | |
| 22 | 95 | Dennis STRANDBERG |  |
Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 16 | 40.975 | 1:27.872 | 21 | |
| 23 | 28 | M | Josh PRICE | |
BMR Racing Academy | Subaru Levorg GT | 16 | 1:10.708 | 1:26.496 | 24 |
| 24 | 66 | Josh COOK | |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 15 | 1 Lap | 1:26.666 | 23 | |
| R | 7 | Stephen JELLEY | |
Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 1 | 15 Laps | 2:00.427 | 27 | |
| R | 20 | M | James COLE | |
Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 1 | 15 Laps | 2:01.681 | 16 |
| R | 16 | Aiden MOFFAT | |
Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 1 | 15 Laps | 2:29.826 | 14 | |
| R | 12 | Mike EPPS | |
Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 0 | 16 Laps | N/A | 12 | |
| R | 61 | Will BURNS | |
Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 0 | 16 Laps | N/A | 26 | |
| NS | 300 | Luke DAVENPORT | |
Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | – | DNS | N/A | 30 | |
| NS | 55 | Jeff SMITH | |
Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | – | DNS | N/A | 31 | |
| NS | 40 | M | Árón TAYLOR-SMITH |  |
MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | – | DNS | N/A | 32 |