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British Touring Car Championship
Rockingham - Race 2 Report - 7/9/14

By MJP Media | 7 September 2014

Colin Turkington makes it a double at Rockingham by winning the second race of the day. As in the first race, MG KX Clubcard Fuel Save take the remaining podium places.

Colin Turkington celebrates with Sam Tordoff (left) and Jason Plato (right)

With championship leader Colin Turkington in pole position and Jason Plato starting 3rd with much less success ballast on board the scene was set for these drivers to make a substantive move on this year's Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship title.

The weather was sunny and warm and as the lights went out, Colin Turkington got a great start whilst Jason Plato was able to get up to second. Alain Menu forced his way up to third with Tordoff 4th and Adam Morgan 5th. Both Fabrizio Giovanardi and Mat Jackson then mugged Morgan with a great move to put the Airwaves Racing Ford Focus' 5th and 6th. The two Fords were then involved in controversy on lap 3 as the team-mates physically fought with each other for the place with bits of bodywork disintegrating. Whilst this was bad news for Airwaves Racing team boss Dave Bartram, it was music to Turkington's ears as he was able to forget about at least two of his competitors for the title as they were stuck behind the Ford wars.

Colin Turkington in his eBay Motors BMW 125i M Sport

As in race one, the action was all in the number 5 to 10 positions with Fabrizio Giovanardi, Andrew Jordan, Rob Austin, Gordon Shedden and Rob Collard all fighting for positions. Morgan retired on lap 7 with mechanical problems from a disappointing 12th place. At the halfway stage, Colin Turkington was leading Jason Plato by 2.1 seconds with Sam Tordoff a further 4 seconds back in 3rd. Alain Menu was still in 4th but not really in contention with Andrew Jordan a further 1.1 seconds back in 5th.

In terms of the championship, Colin Turkington's day could not be going any better as the eBay Motors BMW increased its pace, stretching the lead to over three and a half seconds ahead of Jason Plato whilst Gordon Shedden who is 2nd in the championship, languished down in 9th. Rob Collard, who had been in with a shout of the title coming into Rockingham, was still having a poor day down in 10th but was having a great battle with Gordon Shedden. Shedden was then able to cleanly pass Fabrizio Giovanardi whilst Collard, in following him through, was heavily hit by a clearly annoyed Giovanardi who did his best to run Collard off the circuit.

Colin Turkington is delighted with his second win of the day

With 3 laps to go, Colin Turkington was almost 6 seconds ahead with Jason Plato's tyres starting to go off. This led to him being challenged by Sam Tordoff however their battle was allowing Andrew Jordan in the Pirtek Racing Honda Civic to close up in a great battle for second, third and fourth. Fortunately for Plato, his team-mate was under instructions to defend him, a role which the youngster said he was happy to accept "when the call came in". At the chequered flag it was Colin Turkington with a perfect race win with a massive 8.1 second gap over Jason Plato with Sam Tordoff 3rd. Andrew Jordan was 4th, Rob Austin 5th and Alain Menu 6th.

The third race will be interesting with the reverse grid coming into play with Colin Turkington needing to make up 5 places from 6th on the grid if he wants to win all three races. The championship table now has Turkington on 353 points with Jason Plato now second on 302 and Gordon Shedden third with the same 302 points, however Plato has more race wins. This 51 point lead means that even if Plato or Shedden won 2 more races with Turkington not finishing, he would still be leading the title race! The final race from Rockingham will see former BTCC champion Alain Menu on pole and all the news will be here later this afternoon.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media