28 JULY: BTCC CROFT
A visit to the North Yorkshire circuit heralds the arrival of the second half of the season with everything still to play for.
Colin Turkington “The King of Croft” obviously didn’t want to relinquish his crown with a blistering qualifying session that put him on pole, followed by a comfortable lights to flag victory in race one – the 70th win of his career and his 15th at Croft (the most dominant record of any BTCC driver at any circuit).
Behind Colin, Tom Ingram claimed second to strengthen his Championship hopes, while Jake Hill’s sixth position was a matter of damage limitation after a track limits ruling in qualifying had seen him start 11th on the grid.
Race two was a classic, delivering action that was as blisteringly hot as the track temperatures, and resulted in a 1-2 for two more drivers using Cobra seats with Josh Cooks LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ Toyota taking the flag from Rob Huff in his TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK Toyota.
Huff - the World Touring Car Champion in 2012 - and stablemate Cook started their Speedwork Motorsport-run Corolla GR Sports from seventh and eighth on the grid and were the highest-placed cars on the soft Goodyear tyres, with the top six all forced to run the hard compound rubbers.
Taking full advantage of his softer compound tyres, Huff was immediately on a charge and was up to second place by lap three after a dramatic incident on the run to Tower which saw Turkington, who was struggling on the hard tyre, edged onto the grass by contact with Ash Sutton and shoot across the bows of both Sutton and Huff dropping to Turkington to eighth.
Huff then then chased down Ingram who had gone around the outside of Turkington at Tower on the opening lap to take the lead.
Ingram had no chance against the soft-tyred cars behind, and on the fifth lap he conceded the lead to Huff at Tower, before conceding second to Cook on the next lap.
Cook finally took the lead from Huff after a titanic battle on lap 13, while Tom Ingram did a superb job to hang onto fourth place on the hard tyres.
Jake Hill’s misfortunes continued, with a tap from Tom Chilton sending him in to the barriers.
While race three was just as exciting, the lap charts were somewhat less chaotic than for Race two: Tom Chilton made full use of reversed-grid pole position to lead all the way to the chequered flag.
Championship leader Tom Ingram had made his way up to third when a fast-charging Colin Turkington, who had started ninth on the grid, made a brave move on Ingram on the ninth lap: They ran side-by-side through the Jim Clark Esses and were still alongside each other at the fast Barcroft right-hander. With Turkington marginally ahead but on the outside of the bend, the inevitable contact between the Hyundai and the BMW fired Turkington into the barrier, leaving Ingram to take third at the flag and extend his Championship lead to 21 points over Jake Hill who finished fifth.
