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British Touring Car Championship
Croft - Race 1 Report - 29/6/14

By MJP Media | 29 June 2014

Colin Turkington dominates the first race from Croft with a lights-to-flag victory for eBay Motors.

Colin Turkington wins the first race from Croft

Following a sensational qualifying session yesterday when he smashed the BTCC qualifying lap record, eBay Motors driver Colin Turkington started the first race of the day in pole position alongside the MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save MG6 of Jason Plato, with whom he had tussled in the early stages of the qualifying session. Starting on the 2nd row of the grid were the Honda Yuasa Racing duo of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal in their Civic Tourers with defending champion Andrew Jordan and Rob Collard on row 3.

The drama started before the race had even begun when a problem with the starting lights meant that the start had to be aborted due to the red lights not going out. After a delay of a few minutes and another formation lap, the race got under way successfully with the front runners all getting away cleanly. Further down the field there were a number of first lap bumps and scrapes including Matt Neal who spun and dropped to 8th place.

Gordon Shedden on his way to 2nd place

By the end of the first lap, Gordon Shedden had passed Jason Plato to take 2nd place and with Colin Turkington safely in the lead, the front two started to extend a lead over the rest of the field. A battle for 3rd place soon developed between Jason Plato who was being followed by Rob Collard, Andrew Jordan and Matt Neal who had made his way back up to 6th place. Collard continued to put pressure on Plato whilst defending his place from Pirtek Racing's Jordan.

Colin Turkington slowly extended his lead over Gordon Shedden in 2nd place as the 4-way battle for 3rd place intensified between Jason Plato, Rob Collard, Andrew Jordan and Matt Neal. On lap 7, Collard ran wide but just managed to hold on to his position. Behind this battle, MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save's Sam Tordoff, Chrome Edition Restart Racing's Alain Menu and Airwaves Racing's Mat Jackson were fighting over 7th place.

The battle for 3rd between Jason Plato, Rob Collard and Andrew Jordan

At the front, Colin Turkington was still building his lead over Gordon Shedden, an impressive feat considering his eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport was carrying the maximum amount of success ballast due to leading the championship coming into the Croft meeting. Meanwhile, the battle for 3rd place was still raging with Rob Collard's BMW attacking Jason Plato's MG6 whilst Andrew Jordan's Honda Civic was large in Collard's mirrors.

At the chequered flag it was a resounding victory for 2009 BTCC champion Colin Turkington in the eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport who finished nearly 7.5 seconds ahead of 2nd placed Gordon Shedden in the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Tourer. A further 6.4 seconds further back, Jason Plato held on to take 3rd place with Rob Collard 4th, Andrew Jordan 5th and Matt Neal 6th. Jordan was subsequently given a 1 second penalty, dropping him to 6th place behind Neal. Turkington now leads the Drivers' Championship by 15 points over Gordon Shedden as we look forward to the second race from Croft later this afternoon.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media