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British Touring Car Championship
Croft - Race 2 Report - 28/6/15

By MJP Media | 28 June 2015

Sam Tordoff makes it a double victory for West Surrey Racing at Croft Circuit with a lights-to-flag drive in the second race of the day. Jason Plato keeps his championship campaign on target with 2nd place.

Sam Tordoff's new pink helmet is proving lucky at Croft

Following their dominant performance in the first race of the day, Sam Tordoff and Andy Priaulx once again lined up on the front row of the grid for the second BTCC race from Croft Circuit. Having qualified well down the order for race one due to technical problems, Jason Plato sacrificed that race to get a good grid position for race two and started on the second row of the grid alongside Gordon Shedden. Significantly, Priaulx and Tordoff carry 75kg and 66kg of success ballast respectively due to their 1-2 finish in race one whereas Plato started ballast free. Colin Turkington and Rob Collard started on row three with Rob Austin and Tom Ingram on row four.

The BMWs once again got a good start however Gordon Shedden in the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Type R fared less well, dropping 2 places on the first lap to be running in 6th place. Andy Priaulx in the Team IHG Rewards Club BMW 125i M Sport was soon under attack from Jason Plato in the Team BMR Volkswagen CC. Priaulx managed to defend his position until lap three when both Plato and BMR team-mate Colin Turkington both found a way past, dropping Priaulx to 4th place.

Race two podium celebrations for Tordoff, Plato and Turkington

With Sam Tordoff in the lead ahead of Jason Plato, Colin Turkington and Andy Priaulx, a battle was now developing for 5th place between Rob Collard, Rob Austin and Gordon Shedden. Shedden passed Austin on lap four then set about hunting down Collard and in the process set the fastest lap of the race so far. Further down the order, Andrew Jordan in the MG 888 Racing MG 6GT had dropped several places to be running 11th. As in the previous race, several drivers received a warning about respecting the track limits.

By lap seven, Sam Tordoff in the JCT600 Racing with GardX BMW 125i M Sport was over 2 seconds ahead of Jason Plato, despite carrying an additional 66kg of success ballast from race one. Further down the field, Matt Neal in the Honda Yuasa Racing Civic Type R was challenging Andrew Jordan for 11th place. Neal passed Jordan's MG on lap nine then set about chasing the other MG driven by Jack Goff. At 2/3rd race distance, Tordoff was 2.8 seconds ahead of Plato and looking very strong.

Jason Plato is pleased with finishing 2nd for Team BMR

On lap eleven, Gordon Shedden passed Rob Collard to take 5th place however Collard immediately started challenging Shedden to try and regain the position before being challenged himself by Rob Austin in the Exocet AlcoSense Audi A4 for 6th place. In the closing laps Josh Cook ran off the track with his Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze hitting the tyre barrier heavily on one side. The race ended with victory for Sam Tordoff with Jason Plato 2nd and Colin Turkington 3rd. Andy Priaulx finished 4th with Gordon Shedden 5th and Rob Collard 6th. Rob Austin, Tom Ingram, Adam Morgan and Jack Goff rounded out the top 10.

The random reverse grid draw sees the top 6 finishers of race two reversed on the grid for the final race of the day with Rob Collard starting in pole position alongside Gordon Shedden on the first row. Row two will be taken by Andy Priaulx and Colin Turkington with Jason Plato and Sam Tordoff on row three. With Shedden now leading the Drivers' Championship by 5 points from Plato, who will head the leader board as the Dunlop MSA British Touring car Championship enters its summer break? All will be answered in race three.

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media