Dan Cammish scores lights-to-flag race one win at Snetterton

Dan Cammish scored a lights-to-flag victory in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Snetterton, ahead of Team Vertu’s Tom Ingram and NAPA Racing UK team-mate Ash Sutton.

Cammish led away from the lights at the start, although the Ford driver’s start would be investigated after the race for a potential jump start.

Further back, Power Maxed Racing’s Mikey Doble, fourth on the grid, elected to start the race on the harder compound tyre, resulting in the Vauxhall driver immediately slipping back to sixth behind the fast-starting Sutton, up to third, and Team Vertu’s Adam Morgan, who slotted into fourth.

Further back in the pack, Árón Taylor-Smith dived inside Toyota team-mate Gordon Shedden into Aogstini, but the Irishman made contact with Shedden and in turn knocked into Laser Tools Racing’s Jake Hill, turning the BMW around.

Whilst Taylor-Smith and Shedden continued, Hill had damage to the right-rear suspension on his car and the reigning champion crawled to the pits for repairs, effectively out of the race.

At the front, Cammish held Ingram and Sutton at bay throughout, in the final few laps using his additional TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB] to pull clear of his rivals to win by over four seconds. Despite being investigated, the stewards took no further action on Cammish, who kept his victory.

“It was a good start, got away clean, and it was always important to manage the first lap,” said Cammish. “We managed to fend Ingram off; there was a bit of a boost deficit to the other two.

“In the end it was quite a comfortable margin – I don’t know if their cars went away or Ash started attacking. It was a fairly sensible win in the end.

“I think we did everything right there and I was fairly happy with the car setup. To win on the road is a good starting point.

“At the moment I don’t know what [the investigation] is for or why. The hard thing for me is that I wasn’t aware of it so I don’t get a chance to address it on track – I think we could have won by more if we had to.”

Ingram held off a last-lap challenge from Sutton into Agostini to claim second, with Sutton completing the podium in third.

Daniel Rowbottom brought his NAPA car home in fourth, a further three and a half seconds adrift, ahead of Restart Racing’s Daniel Lloyd, who was fifth as the leading Independent.

Morgan brought his Hyundai home in sixth, having lost out to Lloyd at Riches on lap seven, ahead of Team Vertu team-mate Tom Chilton in seventh, who had a quiet race after gaining two places on the opening lap.

Restart Racing’s Chris Smiley was eighth, making progress up to the mid-stage of the race on the soft tyre.

The top ten was completed by Doble in ninth, the leading driver on the hard tyre, and WSR’s Daryl DeLeon in tenth, the only BMW driver to elect to use the softs early on.

One Motorsport’s Josh Cook was 11^th on the hard tyre, ahead of WSR duo Charles Rainford in 12^th and Aiden Moffat in 13^th, although the latter was later excluded from the result for exceeding the overboost time allowed per lap. NAPA’s Sam Osborne and the Toyota duo of Taylor-Smith and James Dorlin completed the points-paying positions.

Shedden had been in contention for the lower points places and was running in 17^th when the three-time champion was hit by Max Hall’s CUPRA at the final corner, the Un-Limited Motorsport driver having got sideways at the exit of Coram and struggling to scrub the speed off before Murrays. Hall later received an official reprimand and two penalty points on his licence for the collision.

Race two gets underway at 14:20 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	27	M		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	23:13.916	1:54.935	1
2	80	M		Tom INGRAM	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	4.307	1:55.276	2
3	116	M		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	4.689	1:55.295	6
4	32	M		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	8.137	1:55.509	3
5	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Restart Racing	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	8.608	1:55.435	7
6	33	M		Adam MORGAN	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	9.673	1:55.723	5
7	3	M		Tom CHILTON	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	13.364	1:55.992	9
8	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	18.089	1:55.744	12
9	88	I		Mikey DOBLE	Motor Parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	22.495	1:56.642	4
10	2	M		Daryl DELEON	WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	12	23.598	1:56.197	13
11	66	I		Josh COOK	One Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R	12	24.523	1:56.923	8
12	99	M		Charles RAINFORD	LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	12	24.823	1:56.799	11
13	77	M		Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	12	40.438	1:57.565	16
14	40	M		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	41.755	1:57.715	17
15	132	M		James DORLIN	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	42.307	1:57.857	10
16	54	M		Ryan BENSLEY	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	12	42.606	1:57.780	25
17	14	M		Ronan PEARSON	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	12	1:05.819	1:57.669	22
18	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	Powder Monkey Brewing Co with Esidock	CUPRA Leon	12	1:14.614	1:57.855	24
19	17	I		Dexter PATTERSON	ROKiT Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport	CUPRA Leon	12	1:35.053	1:57.886	18
EX	16	M		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	12	39.882	1:57.359	14
R	50	I		Nick HALSTEAD	Motor Parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	8	DNF	1:58.660	23
NC	1	M		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	7	NCF	2:02.435	20
R	52	M		Gordon SHEDDEN	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	2	DNF	1:58.805	15
R	93	I		Max HALL	ROKiT Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport	CUPRA Leon	2	DNF	1:58.610	19
R	12	I		Stephen JELLEY	One Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R	0	DNF	N/A	21