BTCC - Knockhill review
Wins for Ash Sutton, Andrew Jordan and Tom Chilton at a very wet Knockhill circuit as the 60th anniversary year continues to make history with now 14 different victors.
Race 1
Starting from pole, Dan Cammish made a good start in his front wheeled drive Honda while Stephen Jelley was doing his best to keep the works' BMWs of Turkington and Jordan behind him.
The Jelley and Turkington battle intensified and the pair swapped places several times as both drivers in their BMW's slipped and slide in the rain. The battle come to an end on lap 19 when contact was made and Jelley ended up spinning and finishing in the gravel trap.
Sutton though had already passed the BMWs and was chasing down Cammish. It wasn't long before Sutton made his move on the Honda driver and into the lead he wasn't to lose. On his way to his fifth win of the season, he also set the fastest lap.
Turkington survived that contact with Jelley to finish second and despite falling back after leading, Cammish completed the podium.
Championship leader Tom Ingram ended up sixth and made sure that the points gap to rival Turkington wasn't too damaging to the Speedworks driver.
Race 2
The second race of the day was run in conditions worse than race 1 and was red flagged after Sam Smelt in his Audi A3 hit the barriers hard at the chicane.
Starting from pole Sutton got away of the chasing pack who had to do deal with all the spray along with each other. It wasn't long before the first safety car of the car was deployed, lap 1, as Ollie Jackson in the AmDTuning.com Audi came to grief.
Sutton mastered the restart and built up a lead over the rest of the field only for the safety car to come out again after Tom Oliphant in his Mercedes and Carl Boardley in his VW were stuck at the hairpin.
Once again Sutton got away well once the track was clear of the two stranded cars and again pulled away before Smelt went straight on at the chicane and the race was red flagged. Just before the red flag, Ingram made a move on Jordan to move up to second on the road as they went across the start line and unfortunately for Turkington he was falling backwards.
However, after the race it seemed all was not good news at the post race checks for both Sutton and Ingram as the ride height checks were being performed. Indeed, both cars were excluded post race due to the cars failing the check. The exclusion meant that race winner was now Jordan and subsequently the 13th different winner this year. Completing the new top three were Josh Cook and Dan Cammish.
Race 3
Starting on pole courtesy of the reverse grid (and the exclusions from race 2) Tom Chilton won a light to flag race in perhaps the best conditions of the day. Turkington did his best towards the end of the race, but couldn't stop Chilton winning his first since rejoning the BTCC fray. This also meant that Chilton was the 14th different winner of the year.
An early safety car for an incident at the hairpin meant the lead that Chilton had built up disappeared. Once racing resumed again, Chilton was away as Morgan and Turkington were in a battle for second. Turkington finally got past and was chasing down Chilton. Morgan now was feeding off the challenge of Jordan for that last podium spot, which Jordan prised off the Mercedes driver.
Turkington finished second and now had the advantage in the championship as his rivals had to start at the back of the grid. Sutton managed to bring his Subaru back across the line in 8th with some great driving in the damp conditions, while Ingram had to settle for 16th and out of the points.
Jordan managed to fend off those around him to complete the podium and certainly helped his championship push as he out scored those around him.
The next race takes place at Silverstone on 15-16 September.
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