Tom Onslow-Cole has won an exciting second race of the day at Donington Park to move into second overall in the drivers championship, equal with Gordon Shedden. In an intense race Onslow-Cole came from eighth on the grid to earn the victory and was followed accross the line by Shedden in second and Jason Plato in third, who produced one of the drives of the season from the back of the grid.
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Onslow-Cole produced a determined drive to fend off the challenges of Shedden towards the end of the race. Shedden had originally led from pole position and had to fend off the challenges of Mat Jackson at the start of the race after the Airwaves BMW driver got off to a flying start. However from 8th on the grid Onslow-Cole had an even better start and was in third at the end of the opening lap.
On lap 5 Onslow-Cole made his move past Jackson to begin working on closing the gap to Shedden. With the Team Aon driver carrying no ballast he made quick work of closing in on the race leader and on lap 10 he made his move on the Scotsman, passing Shedden into the chicane. By the end of the race Onslow-Cole had opened up almost a one second lead to take his fourth win of the year.
Shedden held on to take second at the finish of the race, although further back the order had been much more mixed up throughout the race. The drive of the race came from Jason Plato who, after starting from 19th on the grid had worked his way up to 9th by the end of the second lap. Benefitting from the errors of those in front of him – Boardman slid off on lap 4 – Plato was also driving the wheels off his Chevrolet Cruze and comfortably set the fastest lap of the race with no ballast on board.
Plato worked his way past team-mate Alex MacDowall by going door-to-door down the back straight on lap six and performed superbly executed overtaking moves on Tom Chilton and Steven Kane several laps later to secure third by the end of the race.
Tom Chilton had to settle for fourth after losing out to Plato at the old hairpin, whilst Mat Jackson finished in fifth after battling hard with his team-mate Kane towards the end of the race. Kane himself was sixth and Rob Collard finished in seventh after losing out to the two Airwaves BMW’s on the final lap.
Matt Neal had a mixed race to eighth. Having started from 5th the Honda driver was optimistic of being able to challenge for the win. However his hopes were dashed at the very start when he was given a drive-through penalty for creeping before the lights went out. Taking his penalty immediately at the end of the first lap, Neal’s chances of points were given a boost when the safety car came out on lap 3 due to Pinkney spinning into the redgate gravel. A determined drive from Neal meant that he secured an 8th place finish just two laps before the chequered flag.
Andrew Jordan finished in ninth place after losing out to Neal on the penultimate lap. Jordan will start the third race from pole position as his number was drawn at random for the reverse grid for the final race.
Completing the top ten was James Nash – the Triple Eight driver had been as high as sixth at the mid-point in the race before dropping back.
Incredibly despite all of the close on-track action there was only one retirement from the race – Martin Johnson dropping out due to engine problems on his Astra Coupe.