Andrew Jordan has taken the first BTCC win of the day here at Oulton Park in his BMW Pirtek Racing 125i M sport.
Jordan rocketed off the line from second position and after that he was never challenged for position, although Matt Neal did close towards the end of the race. Neal was able to hold on to second after he held off Turkington who challenged for second place on the first lap.
The battle for third place was very close with Moffat’s Mercedes, Turkington’s BMW and Sutton’s Subaru all involved initially. Later on Jackson, Collard and Shedden all joined the battle.
Sutton passed Turkington on lap seven, as the BMW driver tried to pass Moffat. Sutton, in his Subaru took advantage of Turkington’s failed move of Moffat into Hislops to pass him. This kept Moffat in third until Sutton made a successful move to take third. A lap before, Sutton had made another attempt to pass Moffat but had been squeezed onto the grass but on the second attempt he made it work.
Turkington then retired with a mystery mechanical problem. At around the same time Tom Ingram retired just short of the pit entrance at around the same time, possibly as a result of damaged sustained in a first lap bump.
“What a week it’s been!” said Jordan afterwards. “I’ve had a little girl and now I’ve won again for BMW in the BTCC – life is good. It’s been a cracking effort from everybody at BMW Pirtek Racing. Ahead of this weekend, I was thinking ‘I really need to get my arse into gear now and do this’. I’ve made cracking starts this year, which added some pressure – people were telling me I should be leading by Turn One!
“Thankfully, that’s exactly what happened and being on the soft tyres, I pushed hard to establish an early gap. Later on, they told me on the radio ‘Matt’s coming’, so I dug deep and was able to maintain the advantage – although if it had been a couple of laps longer, he might have got close enough to attempt a Matt Neal lunge! We’ve had a couple of dreadful weekends, but you don’t forget how to win and that’s a good message to send out.”
“Close but no cigar!” replied Neal. “We got jumped off the line by Andrew [Jordan] as expected but I was really chuffed that I managed to stay ahead of Colin [Turkington]. I pushed to try to get him to eat into his soft tyres early on until I began to feel my own tyres going away a little bit so I had to calm down and throttle back slightly, which gave him a breather for a while.
“Later on, I got a second wind and after that I was waiting either for his soft tyres to fade or a mistake, neither of which came. We’ll have more weight in the car for race two, but the Honda Civic Type R feels great – and that’s a real positive moving forward.”
Behind Sutton in third, Moffat took fourth and the independent win. With Collard and Jackson in fifth and sixth. Shedden took seventh despite contact with Josh Cook’s Focus. Cook was eighth with Rob Austin ninth and Jake Hill tenth for Team Hard.
Sutton was pleased with his podium
“After getting past Gordon [Shedden] on the exit of the hairpin on the opening lap, I set my sights on Colin [Turkington] ahead and managed to pull off a move on him too,” enthused Subaru star Sutton. “Aiden [Moffat] was then a bit more of a challenge – he put up a good fight. He ran me wide onto the grass heading down towards the chicane, although in fairness to him, I think he was unsighted. I had to reset after that and to make two more places up around the outside of the final corner was mega!”
Collard’s fifth combined with the fact that Ingram, Morgan and Goff all failed to score means Rob Collard is the only driver to score points in every race this season.
.
2017 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship – Round 10 – Oulton Park
1 Andrew JORDAN (GBR) BMW Pirtek Racing 15 laps
2 Matt NEAL (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +0.284s
3 Ashley SUTTON (GBR) Adrian Flux Subaru Racing +11.987s
4 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +17.642s
5 Rob COLLARD (GBR) Team BMW +18.750s
6 Mat JACKSON (GBR) Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo +19.325s
7 Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Yuasa Racing +20.259s
8 Josh COOK (GBR) Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport +20.561s
9 Rob AUSTIN (GBR) Handy Motorsport +21.469s
10 Jake HILL (GBR) TAG Racing +22.046s
11 Michael EPPS (GBR) Autoaid/RCIB Insurance Racing +25.005s
12 Jason PLATO (GBR) Adrian Flux Subaru Racing +26.141s
13 Jeff SMITH (GBR) Eurotech Racing +27.315s
14 Ollie JACKSON (GBR) AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts +27.452s
15 Senna PROCTOR (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +27.951s
16 Aron TAYLOR-SMITH (IRL) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +28.271s
17 Stephen JELLEY (GBR) Team Parker with Maximum Motorsport +28.856s
18 Luke DAVENPORT (GBR) Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo +29.057s
19 Tom CHILTON (GBR) Power Maxed Racing +31.032s
20 Daniel LLOYD (GBR) MG Racing RCIB Insurance +31.493s
21 Jack GOFF (GBR) Eurotech Racing +32.640s
22 Josh PRICE (GBR) Adrian Flux Subaru Racing +34.783s
23 James COLE (GBR) Adrian Flux Subaru Racing +35.365s
24 Dave NEWSHAM (GBR) BTC Norlin Racing +35.530s
25 Will BURNS (GBR) Autoaid/RCIB Insurance Racing +44.478s
26 Martin DEPPER (GBR) Team Shredded Wheat Racing with Duo +45.087s
27 Ant WHORTON-EALES (GBR) AmDtuning.com with Cobra Exhausts +45.912s
28 Adam MORGAN (GBR) Ciceley Motorsport +48.900s
29 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Team BMW +52.479s
NC Chris SMILEY (GBR) BTC Norlin Racing +3 laps
DNF Tom INGRAM (GBR) Speedworks Motorsport +4 laps
DNF Matt SIMPSON (GBR) Simpson Racing +15 laps By Marc Waller
