BTCC: Turkington Leads Oulton Double with 50th Win

Northern Ireland’s Colin Turkington continued BMW’s fine form in the BTCC with two victories at Oulton Park on a sweltering day in the Cheshire countryside.

His near-perfect weekend began on Saturday as he ragged his BMW 3 Series to pole position despite carrying maximum ballast as championship leader, beating AmD Tuning’s Sam Tordoff by just 0.027 seconds. Andrew Jordan was fortunate to even take part in qualifying after an FP2 shunt with Matt Simpson, AJ eventually qualified fourth behind Honda’s Dan Cammish.

Stephen Jelley would take the honours in the reverse grid event as Cammish and Jordan took double podiums, with the latter now Turkington’s nearest title contender, albeit 33 points behind the defending champion at the halfway point.

Race One

It was no surprise to see Turkington’s rear-wheel drive machine lead comfortably off the line as Tordoff lost places to Cammish, Jordan and teammate Rory Butcher. Matt Neal ran sixth behind the two AmD cars before he lost a wheel at the ultra-fast Druids bend and went heavily into the tyre barriers on the outside, bringing out the safety car.

It was status quo at the front from then on in whilst Ash Sutton got his elbows out further back, however too much as he clipped the back of Adam Morgan’s Mercedes causing suspension damage to local-lad Morgan.

Turkington cruised through to the end to win ahead of Cammish, Jordan, Butcher and Tordoff in an otherwise uneventful first race of the day.

Podium: Turkington; Cammish; Jordan

Race Two

Once again, Turkington sped off from pole as his teammate Jordan sprinted past Cammish off the line for second. Into the hairpin for the first time and Jack Goff’s Volkswagen CC got a swapper on and he span out of control into the side of Chris Smiley, taking both cars out of the race.

The safety car came out as a result but once in again, it was Neal who showed all his nearly thirty years of BTCC experience getting up from 29th on the grid to eventually finish in 11th in the drive of the day. Execlr8 Motorsport had a horrid second race as already a lap down, Sam Osbourne spun into the tyres at Old Hall before Rob Smith had contact with Michael Crees at the final corner, nearly rolling his MG6 which didn’t see the Oulton Park tarmac again for the rest of the day.

Turkington won for the second time and took his 50th BTCC win in the process ahead of Jordan, Cammish and the third BMW of Tom Oliphant at his local circuit.

Podium: Turkington; Jordan; Cammish

Race Three

The reverse grid draw drew out number 12 which put Jake Hill on pole position and he held the lead from Neal in second and Jason Plato in third. Neal got his nose ahead of Hill’s Audi at Old Hall on lap three but contact between the two sent Neal spinning in front of the field, leaving Plato and Tom Ingram to take to the grass in avoidance. This put Plato out of the race, with his Vauxhall Astra spewing oil on the run to the hairpin. It was this oil that caused half a dozen cars to run well off under braking for the hairpin.

After the excursions of those behind him, Hill had a massive six second lead to Butcher who had come out of the melee in second place and set his sights on the leader as he hunted the Audi down. He was right on his tail come the penultimate lap when he slipped off the road on Plato’s oil and dropped to sixth. This promoted Stephen Jelley to second as he continued a fine weekend’s work but he couldn’t catch Hill who crossed the line first for what he thought was his first BTCC win, but he was later struck with a 20-second penalty for the incident with Neal and the win was handed to Jelley.

Podium: Jelley; Oliphant; Tordoff

With his two wins, Turkington moved 33 points clear at the top of the table with teammate Jordan moving up to second as he continues his season revival. The teams and drivers now get a well-deserved break before heading to Snetterton as the season’s second half kicks off in Norfolk.