Rob Collard has stolen a race two BTCC win at Croft after the two Subaru’s clashed while disputing the lead.
Plato had made the better start of the two Subaru’s from second on the grid and had passed Turkington around the outside of the first corner.
But Turkington didn’t want to give up the victory to his team mate and he went back passed Plato into Tower on lap three. Plato then continued to hound Turkington until mid-distance when he made another passing attempt into tower.
Plato misjudged the move and both cars went off, leaving a gap for Collard to slip through. Luckily for both Subarus, Goff, who was running fourth wasn’t able to take advantage. Collard had initially run behind Goff but passed him just in time to take advantage of the Subaru’s coming together.
The incident seemed to slow the pace of both Subaru’s as Collard pulled out a small lead which he then held until the chequered flag.
“If in doubt, flat out!” said Collard describing his opportunist move for the lead. “I was boxed in behind Jack Goff but then the two Subarus touched and a gap appeared. It was an extremely small gap but it was just big enough to get into, and thankfully Jason gave me room. It’s a great result for the whole team and really good for our championship.
Plato stayed ahead of Turkington to take a two-three result for the Silverline backed works team.
Jack Goff remained in fourth to the flag ahead of the battle for fifth. Ashley Sutton came out on top of this battle, keeping what appeared to be a slower car, ahead of Motorbases Mat Jackson’s Focus who tried everything to find a way past but couldn’t find a gap.
Tom Ingram and Sam Tordoff battled for seventh with Ingram’s Speedworks Toyota Avensis holding off the championship leader’s BMW. Tordoff had fought his way up the field during the race passing Matt Neal and Andrew Jordan at the hairpin but this was as high as he’d get. This turned out to be fortuitous for Tordoff as eighth was drawn out for the reverse grid pole for race three.
Andrew Jordan took ninth just missing out on the reverse grid with Matt Neal in tenth. Jordan’s car was only just put back together around 5 minutes before the pit lane opened for the race as a fault had been found after race one.
BKR’s Aron Smith took more points in his VW CC ahead of Rob Austin in twelfth in his Handy Motorsport Avensis. Shedden took thirteenth in an unusually poor weekend so far for Honda.
Josh Cook was fourteenth and his MG seems to be another car which is struggling for pace today. AMD Tuning’s Ollie Jackson took a welcome point for fifteenth in what was probably his best result of the season.
Race one front row Starter, Daniel Lloyd had a difficult race after his race one dnf. His car didn’t seem to be right and he struggled to twenty third. All three Eurotech cars had a difficult race with Jeff Smith in eighteenth and Martin Depper last of the finishers after an off part way through the race.
The full results can be seen on TSL timing
After race two, Tordoff leads the championship from Matt Neal, despite Neal’s difficult weekend so far. Collard’s win puts him within seven points of first with one race to go at Croft. By Marc Waller
