Colin Turkington canters to race one win at Snetterton

Team BMW’s Colin Turkington secured a lights-to-flag victory in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Snetterton, as Excelr8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram failed to take the fight to the BMW driver.

Turkington was never really challenged by Ingram in the opening encounter, the Northern Irishman getting a better start than his Hyundai rival and opening up a margin of just under a second in the early stages.

Ingram appeared to close in on Turkington in the mid-part of the race, but Turkington was able to respond and post the fastest lap of the race to ensure he secured his first win of the season.

Ingram claimed his second runner-up finish of the year, ending up almost three seconds adrift of Turkington come the end of the race.

Rory Butcher brought his Toyota Corolla home in third to record his first podium finish since joining Speedworks Motorsport, the Scot having had a relatively quiet race.

Fourth went to WSR’s Stephen Jelley, who had to fight his way back into the position, having at one stage dropped to sixth. The BMW driver was stuck behind the Ford Focus of Ollie Jackson for much of the race, before pouncing on lap eight to dispatch the MB Motorsport driver.

Jackson claimed fifth in the leading Ford, ahead of Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan in sixth, although the BMW driver had at one stage been in front of Jelley before slipping back two laps later when he made a mistake and dropped two places.

Daniel Lloyd was running in sixth in the latter stages of the race, fighting to pass Jackson, but clearly held up by the car ahead. As Lloyd explored all his options to pass the Ford, he went off line and Morgan was able to slip back past on the penultimate lap, leaving the PMR Vauxhall driver to take the chequered flag in seventh.

Tom Oliphant made it three Team BMW cars inside the top ten with eighth, ahead of championship leader Jake Hill in ninth and Excelr8 Motorsport’s Chris Smiley in tenth.

Ash Sutton was the best of the Infiniti drivers in 11^th, making limited progress to gain just four places after continuing to struggle for pace at the Norfolk circuit, ahead of the leading Team HARD CUPRA of Jack Goff in 12^th.

Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom had been running in ninth on the opening lap but when he tried to pass the fully-ballasted Hill on the second tour he went off line and dropped four places, eventually finishing in 13^th.

Rowbottom’s team-mate Gordon Shedden made up the most places of any driver, coming through from the back of the grid to take 15^th after having been excluded from the qualifying result and losing his pole for a rear wing which was one degree out of alignment.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:30 BST.

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	2	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	12	23:36.287	1:56.559	1
2	80	I		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	12	2.932	1:56.721	2
3	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	9.451	1:57.327	3
4	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	12	13.96	1:57.400	4
5	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	12	16.921	1:57.926	6
6	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	12	17.572	1:57.329	5
7	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	18.049	1:57.636	8
8	15	M		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	12	18.373	1:57.671	9
9	24	M		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	12	21.951	1:58.126	7
10	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	12	22.583	1:58.224	11
11	1	I		Ash SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	12	22.852	1:58.030	15
12	31	I		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	12	23.759	1:58.237	13
13	32	I		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	12	24.993	1:58.221	10
14	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	12	25.415	1:58.187	20
15	52	I		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	12	26.015	1:57.301	28
16	66	I		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	12	27.736	1:58.297	16
17	11	I		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	28.663	1:58.655	18
18	18	I		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	12	29.382	1:58.514	21
19	4	M		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	12	29.942	1:58.253	14
20	41	I		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	12	32.857	1:58.640	22
21	3	I		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	12	34.464	1:58.283	12
22	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	12	35.358	1:58.576	19
23	21	M		Jessica HAWKINS	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	12	38.361	1:58.770	17
24	62	I		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	12	40.530	1:58.527	26
25	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	12	41.030	1:58.687	24
26	96	I		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	12	41.774	1:58.778	25
27	88	I		Glynn GEDDIE	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	12	42.730	1:58.661	29
28	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	12	43.230	1:59.486	27
29	23	M		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	58.734	1:58.995	23