Snetterton BTCC: Turkington wins Race 1 despite jump start

At the start Shedden got away well in the front-wheel drive Honda to hold the lead ahead of the typically fast-starting rear-wheel drive Subaru of Turkington.

Behind Mat Jackson made up two spots to move his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus to third ahead of the MG of Ash Sutton, with the Ciceley Racing Mercedes of Adam Morgan slipping to fifth.

Aron Smith found himself out of the race in the Team BKR Volkswagen CC on the first lap despite having qualified in seventh, with Alex Martin in the Team Parker Racing Ford Focus involved in an incident with the Eurotech Honda of Jeff Smith, Martin retired and Smith forced into the pits.

Morgan retook fourth position from Sutton on lap three, while the race director notified that five drivers would be investigated post-race for a possible false start.

The list included Maximum Motorsport’s Stewart Lines, the Team BKR Volkswagen of Mark Howard, the TPR Ford of Martin, the Motorbase Ford of Andrew Jordan and critically the Subaru of Turkington, who was harrying Shedden’s Honda for the lead at this point.

Turkington made his move on lap eight, diving down the inside of Shedden’s Honda at Agostini and completing the pass at the next turn at Hamilton, and began to quickly pull away from the Civic Type R.

On lap ten, there were a flurry of tyre issues, with first the MG6 of Josh Cook experiencing a front-left puncture, following in short order by the Eurotech Honda of Martin Depper.

The other MG of Sutton also punctured just one lap later and dropped out of fifth position, promoting the Toyota of Tom Ingram in his place, but only briefly, as Subaru's Jason Plato put an inspired move on Ingram at Agostini to go around the outside and snatch the position from the Speedworks driver.

Turkington went on to win the race, becoming the first driver to score three race victories this season, and moves up to ninth in the drivers’ standings, 50 points behind West Surrey Racing’s Sam Tordoff, who continues to lead the championship, now 16 points clear of Honda’s Matt Neal.

Turkington’s victory however remains provisional subject to the result of the stewards’ investigation into the potential false start.

"It was never going to be an easy race," said Turkington. "I got a reasonable start, but not enough to lead.

"I just had to be patient and pick my moment. I really wasn't expecting to win around here as I've never won around here in a rear-wheel drive car.

UPDATE: Stewards' ruled in favour of Turkington, his Race 1 win stays. Along with Turkington, no action was taken against any of the other drivers investigated.

Race 1 results - Top 10:

Pos	Driver	Car	Laps	Time/Gap
1	Colin Turkington	Subaru	12	23'46.178
2	Gordon Shedden	Honda	12	2.771
3	Mat Jackson	Ford	12	4.042
4	Adam Morgan	Mercedes	12	5.400
5	Jason Plato	Subaru	12	6.880
6	Tom Ingram	Toyota	12	8.994
7	Sam Tordoff	BMW	12	9.607
8	Matt Neal	Honda	12	10.172
9	Warren Scott	Subaru	12	11.160
10	James Cole	Subaru	12	12.647

Neil Hudson / TouringCarTimes