Jake Hill canters to race one win at Snetterton

Laser Tools Racing’s Jake Hill scored a dominant victory in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Snetterton, easing clear of NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton early on in the race.

Following early morning rain at the Norfolk circuit, track conditions then dried out before the race and almost all of the front-runners elected to start the race on the soft rubber.

The main exceptions to this were the Speedworks’ satellite team of Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat, sixth and 17^th on the grid, who chose to use the hard compound, plus half a dozen runners in the second half of the field on the medium compound.

At the start Hill made a clean getaway, as behind new stable-mate Bobby Thompson leapt up into third before the first corner from fifth on the grid, similarly using his rear-wheel drive advantage to leapfrog past NAPA’s Dan Cammish and BMW’s Adam Morgan.

Sutton ran second for the first half of the race, but Thompson behind was on a charge and starting the sixth lap the series returnee dived inside Sutton into Riches, making a clean pass as Sutton put up little defence.

Thompson sought to close in on Hill’s lead, at one point getting the at one stage near three-second advantage down to just under two seconds, but Hill managed to extend the gap again and ultimately won his first race of the season by 1.9 seconds.

Thompson equalled his best-ever result with second, whilst Sutton extended his championship lead with third, continuing his unbroken run of podium finishes this season.

NAPA Racing’s Dan Cammish claimed fourth after passing the BMW of Morgan at the half-way stage with a hybrid-aided move along the start-finish straight, with Morgan fading away over the second half of the race.

Toyota’s Andrew Watson got by Morgan two laps later into the Montreal hairpin, the Speedworks Motorsport driver taking the chequered flag in a season-best fifth.

EXCELR8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram gained more places than anyone else, finishing sixth after battling past title rival Colin Turkington on lap five on the Bentley straight and then passing the ailing Morgan two laps from the finish into Riches. Such was Ingram’s late-race pace he gained an additional bonus point for the fastest lap on the final tour.

Morgan was seventh, ahead of BMW team-mate Turkington in eighth, whilst the top ten was completed by Toyota’s Rob Huff and NAPA Racing’s Daniel Rowbottom.

As anticipated, the Speedworks satellite squad struggled on the hard tyre. Cook took the chequered flag in 14^th, having twice had moments that cost him four places in one lap, the first being on the opening tour when he suffered a self-induced slide at the Esses.

Moffat was last, one lap down, having made contact with EXCELR8’s Tom Chilton at the Montreal hairpin on lap two which resulted in a front-left puncture for the Toyota racer.

Chilton was able to continue after the incident, which briefly lifted his Hyundai onto two wheels, but only claimed a solitary point for 15^th.

Restart Racing’s Chris Smiley had been running as high as eighth on the opening lap, and the CUPRA driver was in tenth before being called into the pits due to a flapping door.

Race two is scheduled to get underway at 14:25 BST.

Race results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	24	M		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330e M Sport	12	23:35.164	1:56.787	1
2	19	M		Bobby THOMPSON	Zeus Cloud Racing with WSR	BMW 330e M Sport	12	1.922	1:56.839	5
3	1	M		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	4.009	1:57.174	2
4	27	M		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	5.130	1:56.791	4
5	11	M		Andrew WATSON	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	8.021	1:57.042	7
6	80	M		Tom INGRAM	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	8.770	1:56.404	13
7	33	M		Adam MORGAN	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	12	12.041	1:56.930	3
8	20	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330e M Sport	12	19.824	1:58.019	9
9	12	M		Rob HUFF	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	22.219	1:57.734	8
10	32	M		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	22.426	1:57.685	10
11	14	M		Ronan PEARSON	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	26.880	1:58.165	12
12	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	29.528	1:58.207	15
13	88	I		Mikey DOBLE	Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	33.585	1:58.499	16
14	66	M		Josh COOK	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	36.228	1:58.778	6
15	3	M		Tom CHILTON	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	37.236	1:58.417	14
16	77	M		Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	40.323	1:58.363	20
17	18	I		Daryl DELEON	Duckhams Racing with Bartercard	CUPRA Leon	12	57.061	1:58.515	19
18	222	I		Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	12	1:02.756	1:57.696	11
19	29	I		Scott SUMPTON	Restart Racing	CUPRA Leon	12	1:39.415	2:00.612	18
20	22	M		Nick HALSTEAD	BRISTOL STREET MOTORS	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	11	+ 1 LAP	2:00.743	21
21	16	M		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	11	+ 1 LAP	1:58.721	17