Andrew Jordan secures fourth win of season in race one at Croft

BMW Pirtek Racing’s Andrew Jordan secured a lights-to-flag win in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Croft, leading BTC Racing’s Chris Smiley and Motorbase’s Tom Chilton.

Jordan controlled the race from pole position, twice opening up a margin of just under two seconds over the chasing Honda of Smiley as a mid-race safety car period wiped out his initial lead.

After a cautious opening few laps for the field on a dry circuit with sodden margins, the safety car was then called for on lap seven when Rob Collard went off on mud on the circuit at Sunny Out and hit the tyres, his Vauxhall ending up stranded in the mud.

The safety car was out for five laps before racing resumed, although Motorbase’s Ollie Jackson went off at Turn 1 under the neutralised conditions, dropping him out of what was then eighth place.

Jackson had clipped a tyre stack three laps earlier and damaged the front-left of his car, subsequently being passed by the Subaru of Ash Sutton, with the damage possibly contributing to his off.

Racing resumed on lap 13 and Jordan immediately opened up a comfortable two second margin, whilst Smiley had to hold off a challenge from Chilton for second. In the end Chilton was unable to attempt a serious attempt to pass and had to settle for the final podium place.

BMW’s Colin Turkington was fourth, despite an attempt from his team-mate Tom Oliphant for the position as the safety car came out. Oliphant gave the place back and settled for fifth.

Honda’s Dan Cammish was sixth, having got past Sutton on the opening lap, with the Subaru driver having to settle for seventh.

Power Maxed Racing’s Jason Plato took eighth, whilst the top ten was completed by the second BTC Honda of Josh Cook and Honda’s Matt Neal, who passed both Jake Hill and Tom Ingram on successive laps at Sunny In in the closing stages of the race.

Ingram brought his Toyota home in 11^th after making progress from 15^th on the grid, ahead of Hill’s Audi in 12^th.

The penultimate lap of the race saw Team HARD’s Michael Crees go off at the Complex, going backwards into the tyre barriers and dropping out of 24^th.

From the back of the grid, AmD’s Rory Butcher took 18^th with full ballast and the less-favourable tyre, giving the Scot a reasonable chance of points in race two.

Butcher’s team-mate Sam Tordoff had been batting for the last of the points positions in 15^th, but the Honda driver went off the circuit on lap 15 and finished as the last runner on the lead lap in 23^rd.

Both Matt Simpson and Nic Hamilton were running at the chequered flag, albeit several laps down after visits to the pitlane, the former being shown a black and orange flag for damage to his front-left corner.

Exceler8 Motorsport’s Sam Osborne also failed to finish, the MG driver spinning off early in the race before returning to the pits.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:40 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	77	M	Andrew JORDAN		BMW Pirtek Racing	BMW 330i M Sport	18	29:13.613	1:22.194	1
2	22	I	Chris SMILEY		BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	18	1.835	1:22.598	2
3	3	I	Tom CHILTON		Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Gallagher	Ford Focus RS	18	2.685	1:22.543	3
4	1	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	18	3.259	1:22.569	4
5	15	M	Tom OLIPHANT		Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	18	3.472	1:22.499	5
6	27	M	Dan CAMMISH		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	18	4.405	1:22.583	7
7	116	M	Ashley SUTTON		Adrian Flux Subaru Racing	Subaru Levorg	18	4.736	1:22.481	6
8	11	M	Jason PLATO		Sterling Insurance with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	18	6.150	1:22.831	10
9	66	I	Josh COOK		BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type R	18	10.751	1:22.948	12
10	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	18	12.561	1:22.860	13
11	80	M	Tom INGRAM		Team Toyota GB with Ginsters	Toyota Corolla	18	15.460	1:23.531	15
12	24	I	Jake HILL		TradePriceCars.com	Audi S3	18	16.361	1:23.491	9
13	12	I	Stephen JELLEY		Team Parker Racing	BMW 125i M Sport	18	17.004	1:23.077	18
14	16	I	Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	18	17.593	1:23.703	17
15	18	M	Senna PROCTOR		Adrian Flux Subaru Racing	Subaru Levorg	18	18.161	1:23.602	11
16	33	I	Adam MORGAN		Mac Tools with Ciceley Motorsport	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	18	18.814	1:23.569	28
17	31	I	Jack GOFF		RCIB Insurance with Fox Transport	Volkswagen CC	18	19.449	1:23.760	20
18	6	I	Rory BUTCHER		Cobra Sport AmD AutoAid / RCIB Insurance	Honda Civic Type R	18	19.841	1:23.658	29
19	41	I	Carl BOARDLEY		RCIB Insurance with Fox Transport	Volkswagen CC	18	20.581	1:23.578	21
20	32	I	Daniel ROWBOTTOM		Cataclean Racing with Ciceley Motorsport	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	18	22.955	1:24.333	14
21	8	I	Mark BLUNDELL		TradePriceCars.com	Audi S3	18	29.810	1:24.863	27
22	37	I	Rob SMITH		Exceler8 Motorsport	MG6	18	31.263	1:25.466	25
23	600	I	Sam TORDOFF		Cobra Sport AmD AutoAid / RCIB Insurance	Honda Civic Type R	18	1:27.812	1:23.701	26
R	777	I	Michael CREES		GKR Scaffolding with Autobrite Direct	Volkswagen CC	16	DNF	1:24.731	22
NC	28	I	Nicolas HAMILTON		ROKiT Racing with Motorbase	Ford Focus RS	16	NCF	1:24.815	30
NC	303	I	Matt SIMPSON		Simpson Racing	Honda Civic Type R	15	NCF	1:23.899	19
R	4	I	Sam OSBORNE		Exceler8 Motorsport	MG6	10	DNF	1:27.087	23
R	48	I	Ollie JACKSON		Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Gallagher	Ford Focus RS	8	DNF	1:24.881	8
R	19	I	Bobby THOMPSON		GKR Scaffolding with Autobrite Direct	Volkswagen CC	7	DNF	1:25.396	24
R	9	M	Rob COLLARD		Sterling Insurance with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	6	DNF	1:25.530	16