Aiden Moffat takes race one win as Ash Sutton edges closer to title

Aiden Moffat emerged victorious in a damp opening British Touring Car Championship race at Brands Hatch, ahead of Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton, as the latter took a big step closer to a maiden title.

Moffat, who started the race alongside pole-sitter Jack Goff from the front row of the grid, took the lead at the first corner of the race after Goff lost the back end of his Civic and slithered off the circuit into the tyre barriers on the infield.

Whilst Goff was able to continue, after going in backwards, he re-joined the race at the very back of the field as Moffat and Sutton led the pack on the opening lap.

Ingram made his move on Sutton for second on lap six and the Speedworks Motorsport driver immediately set about applying pressure to Moffat. The Scot, however, kept his cool to secure a second career win ahead of Ingram, who lost ground to the Mercedes driver on the final lap when caught in traffic.

Sutton completed the podium in third and as a result extends his championship margin to 24 points over title rival Colin Turkington, who struggled to make much progress in the damp race.

Fourth went to Motorbase’s Mat Jackson, who made the most of running with dry tyres on a drying track to gain 11 positions over the course of the race, as a handful of drivers on wet tyres struggled to the very back of the field as the race progressed.

Power Maxed Racing duo Tom Chilton and Senna Proctor enjoyed their best combined result of the season as they brought their Vauxhall Astras home in fifth and sixth respectively, the latter having made up seven positions over the course of the race.

Honda’s Gordon Shedden also made good progress in the race to claim seventh, from 15^th on the grid, ahead of BTC Norlin Racing’s Dave Newsham in eighth.

Handy Motorsport’s Rob Austin claimed ninth, despite losing a significant amount of time with a spin onto the grass on the exit of Graham Hill Bend on lap seven that dropped him out of fourth.

The second factory Honda of Matt Neal completed the top ten, with the three-time champion having got a poor start that saw him drop from sixth on the grid to 14^th at the end of the first tour.

The second BTC Norlin Chevrolet of Chris Smiley was 11^th after another steady race, whilst Eurotech Racing’s Jack Goff took 12^th after a determined drive from the very back of the field following his lap one spin.

Title contender Turkington continued to endure a difficult weekend, spending most of the race mired in the lower points-paying positions before losing a handful of places on the final lap, having been briefly up to 12^th. The BMW driver eventually finished in 15^th, although the result was good enough to secure Team BMW the Teams’ championship ahead of race two.

A number of drivers opted to start the race on wet tyres, which proved to be the wrong move on a drying track. Amongst them were BMW Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan and Subaru’s Jason Plato, who took the chequered flag in 27^th and 28^th place respectively, one lap down.

Team HARD’s Jake Hill, who was running in fourth at the end of the opening lap, and Subaru’s Josh Price were given drive-through penalties for jump starts, with the duo finishing down in 26^th and 22^nd respectively.

Adam Morgan made it a race of mixed emotions for Ciceley Motorsport, as he twice spun into the barriers all of his own accord on successive laps and ended up as the only retirement of the race, his Mercedes sporting front-end damage as a result of his incidents.

Race two is scheduled to take place at 14:22 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	16		Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	15	24:10.915	1:34.400	2
2	80		Tom INGRAM		Speedworks Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	15	0.345	1:34.458	7
3	116	M	Ashley SUTTON		Adrian Flux Subaru Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	15	1.499	1:34.338	3
4	3		Mat JACKSON		Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo	Ford Focus	15	14.474	1:34.082	15
5	2	M	Tom CHILTON		Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	15	15.802	1:34.262	5
6	18	M	Senna PROCTOR		Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	15	16.195	1:34.050	13
7	52	M	Gordon SHEDDEN		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	19.140	1:33.715	16
8	17		Dave NEWSHAM		BTC Norlin Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	15	29.547	1:34.377	11
9	11		Rob AUSTIN		Handy Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	15	31.577	1:33.998	4
10	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	41.344	1:34.862	6
11	22		Chris SMILEY		BTC Norlin Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	15	47.480	1:34.346	19
12	31		Jack GOFF		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	47.708	1:34.342	1
13	303	M	Matt SIMPSON		Simpson Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	49.110	1:34.304	14
14	48		Ollie JACKSON		AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts	Audi S3	15	50.241	1:34.271	26
15	4	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Team BMW	BMW 125i M Sport	15	50.667	1:34.201	17
16	10		Ant WHORTON-EALES		AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts	Audi S3	15	50.891	1:34.088	22
17	39		Brett SMITH		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	1:05.495	1:35.183	29
18	12		Mike EPPS		Autoaid / RCIB Insurance Racing	Volkswagen CC	15	1:08.822	1:34.529	20
19	20	M	James COLE		Adrian Flux Subaru Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	15	1:14.046	1:34.668	23
20	7		Stephen JELLEY		Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport	Ford Focus	15	1:14.698	1:35.814	25
21	30		Martin DEPPER		Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo	Ford Focus	15	1:24.787	1:36.667	27
22	28	M	Josh PRICE		A-Plan Academy	Subaru Levorg GT	15	1:26.364	1:34.616	24
23	40	M	Árón TAYLOR-SMITH		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	15	1:38.336	1:40.475	21
24	6		Rory BUTCHER		Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo	Ford Focus	14	1 Lap	1:41.416	12
25	66		Josh COOK		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	14	1 Lap	1:41.298	30
26	24		Jake HILL		TAG Racing	Volkswagen CC	14	1 Lap	1:40.644	8
27	77	M	Andrew JORDAN		BMW Pirtek Racing	BMW 125i M Sport	14	1 Lap	1:42.820	18
28	99	M	Jason PLATO		Adrian Flux Subaru Racing	Subaru Levorg GT	14	1 Lap	1:42.680	10
29	95		Stewart LINES		Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport	Ford Focus	14	1 Lap	1:42.902	28
R	33		Adam MORGAN		Ciceley Motorsport	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	2	13 Laps	1:55.442	9
NS	5	M	Rob COLLARD		Team BMW	BMW 125i M Sport	–	DNS	N/A	–