Thruxton BTCC: Jackson dominates final race

Starting second on the reverse grid, Jackson took the lead before the field reached turn one, with pole sitter Dan Welch unable to get off the line as quickly as his rivals.

From then on Jackson never looked back and led every lap on the way to the finish line.

Welch held second for the first half of the race, holding back the much quicker Jack Goff for five laps, before spearing off to the left at Seagrave and ending his race in the barrier.

While hunting down Welch, Goff was also involved in a race long battle with Honda’s Gordon Shedden, with the two-time champion pulling off arguably the save of the season when he effectively drifted his way around the back of the circuit after contact with West Surrey Racing’s Rob Collard.

The sideways moment allowed Neal to move up into second place, while Shedden continued to battle with Goff further behind.

The duel came to an abrupt end when Goff lost control of his BMW going in to the chicane and colliding with the right-rear corner of the Honda Civic Type-R.

The incident ended Shedden’s race, damaging his suspension and leaving the reigning champion stranded on the pit exit.

Matt Neal hung on to second until the finish, while Adam Morgan, who had been hanging around the top positions all race, took the final podium position.

The Triple Eight Racing MG6 duo of Josh Cook and Ashley Sutton rounded out the top five.

Collard came back to sixth after his incident with Shedden, with Rob Austin, Sam Tordoff, Dan Lloyd and Mike Epps rounding out the top ten.

Eurotech racing completed another strong result with Jeff Smith and Martin Depper in 11th and 12th, while Jake Hill took another points scoring result in 13th. Ollie Jackson and Alex Martin rounded out the points positions.

While no-one suffered from a traditional “Thruxton” puncture, Andrew Jordan suffered a left rear puncture and retired on the seventh lap, while Tom Ingram retired with a seemingly mechanical issue with just three laps to go.

Race 3 results - Top 10:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time/Gap
1	Mat Jackson	Ford	15'54.641
2	Matt Neal	Honda	0.256
3	Adam Morgan	Mercedes	4.568
4	Josh Cook	MG	4.766
5	Ash Sutton	MG	5.006
6	Rob Collard	BMW	5.460
7	Rob Austin	Toyota	6.082
8	Sam Tordoff	BMW	6.291
9	Daniel Lloyd	Honda	10.533
10	Michael Epps	Toyota	11.333

James Charman / TouringCarTimes