Ash Sutton piles the pressure on Colin Turkington to snatch race two win

Ash Sutton pressured Colin Turkington into a mistake to claim victory on the final lap of the second British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill.

Race one winner Turkington launched into a comfortable lead at the start ahead of BTC Racing’s Josh Cook, as further back Sutton jumped from fourth on the grid to third and Chris Smiley stalled his Hyundai from fifth.

That forced several drivers to take rapid evasive action, with Toyota’s Sam Smelt skipping across the grass and Nicolas Hamilton and Tom Oliphant coming together, pitching the CUPRA driver into the concrete wall.

A safety car intervention was thus required to recover Hamilton’s stranded car, with Smiley having dropped to 17^th on the opening lap as a result of his poor getaway.

Racing resumed on lap seven with Turkington initially pulling out a lead of just over a second from Cook.

Sutton pounced on the BTC Racing driver for second at the hairpin on lap nine with a well-timed move, allowing the championship leader to set about cutting Turkington’s 1.3-second lead.

Just outside the podium positions, MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill passed Senna Proctor for fourth a lap after the restart, as the latter began to drop away from the leading group.

A couple of laps later, Proctor, Gordon Shedden and Aiden Moffat were involved in a tight scrap for fifth, which saw Shedden get past Proctor for the position on lap ten at McIntyres, as Aiden Moffat closed in on the group in his Laser Tools Racing Infiniti.

By this stage Tom Chilton, who started 12^th, had closed in and was up to seventh briefly, but contact with Moffat at the chicane on lap 11 saw the Ciceley Motorsport driver spin to the rear of the field.

Nine laps later Moffat, running in seventh, was involved in another skirmish with Toyota’s Rory Butcher, and the pair made contact at the first corner going on to lap 21.

The touch pitched Butcher off into the barriers and out of the race, whilst Moffat dropped to 12^th. The safety car was thus required for a second time in order to try to move the stricken Speedworks Toyota, although in the end it was left in-situ under waved yellow flag conditions.

Racing resumed with just three laps left to run. Turkington had already had to withstand an overtaking attempt by Sutton just before the neutralisation, and he was under intense pressure from the Infiniti driver again at the restart.

Going onto the final lap Turkington led, until he made a mistake at the chicane, took too much kerb and ran wide through the gravel.

That handed Sutton the lead with just two corners to go, whilst Turkington dropped a place and took the chequered flag in second, ahead of Hill in third, who had passed Cook for the final podium place on lap ten.

Cook was fourth, with Team Dynamics’ Shedden the top Scot in fifth. Excelr8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram was sixth, having passed Proctor at the start, who slipped to seventh.

Power Maxed Racing’s Jason Plato finished in eighth, whilst the top ten was completed by Team BMW’s Stephen Jelley and Laser Tools Racing’s Carl Boardley.

The reversed grid draw for the final race will see the top nine reversed, placing Jelley on pole with Plato alongside.

In the drivers’ championship, Sutton’s win has allowed him to extend his lead, the reigning champion now sitting on 161 points ahead of Ingram (137), Turkington (130), Hill (128), Cook (123) and Shedden (116).

Race three is scheduled to get underway at 17:25 BST.

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	1	I		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	27	27:06.766	51.145	4
2	2	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	27	1.043	51.211	1
3	24	M		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	27	1.770	51.387	6
4	66	I		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	27	2.258	51.603	3
5	52	I		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	27	2.672	51.362	8
6	80	I		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	27	3.202	51.521	10
7	18	I		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	27	4.427	51.598	2
8	11	I		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	27	4.829	51.638	14
9	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	27	5.068	51.675	11
10	41	I		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	27	5.656	51.712	18
11	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	27	8.393	51.527	7
12	31	I		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	27	8.714	51.838	16
13	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	27	9.246	51.732	5
14	96	I		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	27	10.003	52.114	20
15	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	27	13.090	52.025	25
16	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	27	13.197	51.743	13
17	15	M		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	27	13.503	51.964	28
18	32	I		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	27	14.535	51.841	15
19	20	20		Paul RIVETT	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	27	14.825	52.159	23
20	4	M		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	27	14.862	51.782	19
21	19	I		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	27	15.386	52.262	22
22	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	27	16.649	51.923	27
23	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	27	18.008	52.133	26
24	23	M		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	27	18.188	51.889	17
25	3	I		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	27	18.401	51.652	12
26	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	27	19.010	51.962	29
27	62	I		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	26	+ 1 LAP	52.233	21
R	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	DNF	51.556	9
R	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	0	DNF	N/A	24