Gordon Shedden extended his championship lead after heading up a 1-2 finish for Honda in the final British Touring Car Championship race of the weekend at Oulton Park.
Shedden, who claimed the honours with an incisive move to the inside of Andrew Jordan’s BMW 125i M Sport at Cascades with three laps to run, now holds a sixteen-point advantage over Rob Collard heading to Croft in three weeks.
Matt Neal joined his Team Dynamics stablemate on the podium after a similarly bold move around the outside of Jordan at the Island Hairpin.
Their duel was similarly replicated further back as Colin Turkington disputed fourth with race two winner Ashley Sutton and team-mate Collard, though everywhere the Northern Irishman attempted to pass he found a Subaru Levorg GT handily placed.
Collard would take fifth, with the top ten rounded out by Rob Austin, the Team.HARD duo of Jake Hill and Michael Epps and a career-best tenth for Luke Davenport.
It proved to be a disastorous weekend for outgoing standings leader Tom Ingram, with the Speedworks Motorsport driver picking up just a single point from all three contests at the Cheshire circuit, courtesy of the fastest lap before retiring from the third race.
The dices at the front were made possible by a safety car after Aiden Moffat and Dave Newsham made contact at Hill Top and the Laser Tools Racing Mercedes A-Class pitched right into the tyre barrier.
Josh Cook had also similarly suffered after defending robustly from the Honda Civic Type R duo at the front, but contact from behind courtesy of Shedden ruined the rear-right towlink on his Maximum Motorsport Ford Focus ST and he duly slid off into retirement at Cascades.
Disaster struck Aron Taylor-Smith in the closing stages as his MG6 GT slowed coming up Deer Leep, before re-setting and allowing him to cross the line, albeit robbed of a welcome top-ten finish.
With three weeks until the championship hits the halfway stage, it proved to be a profitable journey to Cheshire – long hailed as a circuit suited to rear-wheel drive machinery – for the front-wheel drive Honda pairing.
Race result
POS | NO | CL | DRIVER | NAT | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME/GAP | BEST | GD |
1 | 52 | M | Gordon SHEDDEN | Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 29:41.142 | 1:27.262 | 3 | |
2 | 25 | M | Matt NEAL | Halfords Yuasa Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 0.279 | 1:27.538 | 4 | |
3 | 77 | M | Andrew JORDAN | BMW Pirtek Racing | BMW 125i M Sport | 18 | 1.722 | 1:27.650 | 2 | |
4 | 116 | M | Ashley SUTTON | Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 18 | 4.272 | 1:27.554 | 6 | |
5 | 4 | M | Colin TURKINGTON | Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 18 | 4.375 | 1:27.379 | 13 | |
6 | 5 | M | Rob COLLARD | Team BMW | BMW 125i M Sport | 18 | 4.59 | 1:27.545 | 5 | |
7 | 11 | Rob AUSTIN | Handy Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 18 | 5.509 | 1:27.871 | 8 | ||
8 | 12 | Mike EPPS | Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 18 | 7.045 | 1:28.078 | 10 | ||
9 | 24 | Jake HILL | TAG Racing | Volkswagen CC | 18 | 8.418 | 1:28.314 | 9 | ||
10 | 300 | Luke DAVENPORT | Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 18 | 8.736 | 1:27.759 | 17 | ||
11 | 99 | M | Jason PLATO | Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 18 | 9.077 | 1:28.026 | 11 | |
12 | 23 | M | Daniel LLOYD | MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 18 | 9.414 | 1:27.797 | 22 | |
13 | 17 | David NEWSHAM | BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 18 | 9.789 | 1:27.913 | 19 | ||
14 | 303 | M | Matt SIMPSON | Simpson Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 10.248 | 1:27.706 | 25 | |
15 | 31 | Jack GOFF | Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 10.605 | 1:28.055 | 16 | ||
16 | 18 | M | Senna PROCTOR | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 18 | 11.412 | 1:27.716 | 18 | |
17 | 7 | Stephen JELLEY | Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 18 | 12.041 | 1:27.889 | 23 | ||
18 | 48 | Ollie JACKSON | AmDtuning.com with CobraExhausts | Audi S3 | 18 | 12.099 | 1:27.750 | 26 | ||
19 | 2 | M | Tom CHILTON | Power Maxed Racing | Vauxhall Astra | 18 | 12.505 | 1:28.132 | 24 | |
20 | 22 | Chris SMILEY | BTC Norlin Racing | Chevrolet Cruze | 18 | 13.958 | 1:28.427 | 27 | ||
21 | 10 | Ant WHORTON-EALES | AmDtuning.com with CobraExhausts | Audi S3 | 18 | 15.882 | 1:28.330 | 28 | ||
22 | 61 | Will BURNS | Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing | Volkswagen CC | 18 | 16.786 | 1:28.426 | 29 | ||
23 | 30 | Martin DEPPER | Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 18 | 19.397 | 1:28.987 | 20 | ||
24 | 55 | Jeff SMITH | Eurotech Racing | Honda Civic Type R | 18 | 19.419 | 1:28.177 | 21 | ||
25 | 40 | M | Árón SMITH | MG Racing RCIB Insurance | MG6GT | 18 | 27.750 | 1:27.515 | 12 | |
26 | 80 | Tom INGRAM | Speedworks Motorsport | Toyota Avensis | 18 | 33.920 | 1:26.911 | 30 | ||
27 | 28 | M | Josh PRICE | BMR Racing Academy | Subaru Levorg GT | 17 | 1 Lap | 1:28.578 | 15 | |
NC | 20 | M | James COLE | Adrian Flux Subaru Racing | Subaru Levorg GT | 13 | 5 Laps | 1:27.640 | 31 | |
R | 16 | Aiden MOFFAT | Laser Tools Racing | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | 7 | 11 Laps | 1:28.021 | 14 | ||
R | 66 | Josh COOK | Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport | Ford Focus | 3 | 15 Laps | 1:28.189 | 1 | ||
R | 3 | Mat JACKSON | Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo | Ford Focus | 0 | DNF | N/A | 7 | ||
NS | 33 | Adam MORGAN | Ciceley Motorsport | Mercedes-Benz A-Class | – | DNS | N/A | 32 |