Carl Boardley claimed a controversial win in the opening TCR UK race of the weekend at Silverstone – before then being controversially disqualified from the result for contact with Adam Shepherd, handing victory to Callum Newsham.
Shepherd had earlier qualified his CUPRA on pole position by just 0.020 seconds ahead of title rival Boardley, and the two went side-by-side into the first corner of the opening race late on Saturday afternoon.
As Shepherd made a poor start from pole, it allowed Boardley to edge alongside for the first corner, where the reigning champion suffered a slide. The two CUPRAs made contact on the exit of the corner, pitching Shepherd onto the grass on the infield.
As Shepherd rejoined in sixth, there was a further incident with Will Powell, whose Honda was sent into the gravel at Becketts as a result.
Shepherd appeared to have got away with the contact, until he spun at Brooklands further around the lap when his right-rear tyre came off the rim, as the safety car was called upon.
The neutralisation allowed Shepherd to pit and change tyre, rejoining at the back of the field on the lead lap, as Boardley led.
At the restart, Boardley had to fend off race-long pressure from JH Racing’s Newsham, but the chasing Hyundai driver – who had passed both Bradley Hutchison and Steve Laidlaw in the space of two corners a lap after the restart – couldn’t find a way past Boardley for the on-track win.
That all changed after the race, when stewards took a dim view on the incident between Boardley and Shepherd at the start, saying that Boardley “gave the [Shepherd] no room to remain on the circuit which led to the contact”, with the incident compounded by “the continued amount of contact between cars 1 and 117 all season, with repeated warnings from the Clerk regarding driving standards”.
That handed victory to Newsham, his fourth of the season and third in four races, by just over a second from Hutchison.
Laidlaw completed the podium in third, ahead of Darron Lewis’ Hyundai in fourth.
Series returnee Matthew Wilson was fifth, with Luke Sargeant the leading Audi driver in sixth.
Shepherd would have been sixth, but he too was penalised after the race, with 15 seconds to his race time added because he passed Cedrich Bloch before the control line at the safety car restart.
Races two and three take place at 13:35 BST and 17:30 BST on Sunday.
Race result
| POS | NO | CL | NAT | DRIVER | ENTRANT | CAR | LAPS | TIME | BEST | GD |
| 1 | 16 |  |
Callum NEWSHAM | JH Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 20:54.817 | 58.521 | 5 | |
| 2 | 17 | |
Bradley HUTCHISON | BOND IT with MPHR | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 1.377 | 58.839 | 3 | |
| 3 | 100 | |
Steve LAIDLAW | Area Motorsport | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 1.952 | 58.802 | 4 | |
| 4 | 285 | |
Darron LEWIS | DLR with JH Racing | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 3.954 | 58.955 | 6 | |
| 5 | 31 | |
Matthew WILSON | JW Bird Motorsport | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 4.822 | 59.267 | 8 | |
| 6 | 115 | |
Luke SARGEANT | RS Vehicle Sales | Audi RS3 LMS TCR II | 16 | 5.617 | 59.023 | 15 | |
| 7 | 70 | |
Owen HILLMAN | Pro Alloys Racing | Lynk & Co 03 TCR | 16 | 7.758 | 59.590 | 12 | |
| 8 | 101 | |
Sam LAIDLAW | Capture Motorsport | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 8.991 | 59.037 | 7 | |
| 9 | 28 | |
Bradley THURSTON | Go-Fix Honda by Sport77 | Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR | 16 | 11.361 | 59.962 | 10 | |
| 10 | 22 | |
Rick KERRY | EDF Motorsport | CUPRA TCR | 16 | 12.721 | 1:00.139 | 11 | |
| 11 | 27 | |
Will BEECH | Capture Motorsport | Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR | 16 | 13.055 | 59.999 | 13 | |
| 12 | 12 | |
Cedrich BLOCH | Simon Green Motorsport with Sport77 | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 16 | 18.302 | 1:01.053 | 14 | |
| 13 | 117 | |
Adam SHEPHERD | Area Motorsport with Shepherd Motors | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 20.200 | 58.968 | 1 | |
| 14 | 81 | |
Stewart LINES | Maximum Motorsport with Capture Motorsport | Hyundai i30 N TCR | 16 | 21.838 | 1:00.030 | 16 | |
| 15 | 7 | |
Will POWELL | Go-Fix Honda by Sport77 | Honda Civic Type-R FK7 TCR | 15 | + 1 LAP | 59.527 | 9 | |
| R | 19 | |
Jeffrey ALDEN | Matrix Motorsport with DW Racing | Audi RS3 LMS TCR | 7 | DNF | 1:00.367 | 17 | |
| EX | 1 | |
Carl BOARDLEY | CBM with Hart GT | CUPRA Leon Competición TCR | 16 | 20:54.514 | 58.746 | 2 |